


Not Quite Young

by roggietaylor



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Early 70s, Early Queen (Band), Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, Late 70s, M/M, News of the World, Roger's POV, kind of, sheer heart attack - Freeform, that kind of era, through to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:02:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 52,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22838251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roggietaylor/pseuds/roggietaylor
Summary: Roger was straight as an arrow. It was a truth about himself he'd never once felt the need to question or test, he just knew it to be true. And yet a few encounters with John are enough to turn that stable self image entirely on it's head and leave Roger reeling.
Relationships: John Deacon/Roger Taylor
Comments: 83
Kudos: 173





	1. Sheer Heart Attack I

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic is one I've been dabbling with on and off for a bit. I wanted to post it before my most recent one but I wanted to switch up the ships a bit so I'm posting it now :) It's sort of structured to have two chapters based in the era of whatever album their titled after, just so you understand the titles! I hope you enjoy it! If you do please comment <3!! Also I am still planning an epilogue for 'Life's Eternal Rhyme' but I wanted to get this one started!

**Sheer Heart Attack I**

The sweaty perfection of a song was second only to its public performance in Roger’s opinion. Nailing the back track, playing through a perfect take, was almost as heart pounding and exhilarating. When their take ended, Roger looked to the booth where Brian clapped and the producer gave them a thumbs up. Roger looked to John, his face sweat-soaked and red from playing so many takes back to back, John’s calm and serene as usual, only marred by a wide grin.

“For the record, I think we played it perfect each take,” said John.

“For the record, you didn’t,” said Freddie into the microphone that boomed into their headphones.

John rolled his eyes and looked to Roger to commiserate, Roger grinned and winked back. There was a level of camaraderie that went into being the rhythm section. Past a certain point, Freddie and Brian didn’t understand what they needed to do, what they wanted from the two of them, didn’t understand how they were doing what they did. It wasn’t their faults, they’d never had cause to play bass or drums, but they sure behaved like experts when they got touchy about how a song was turning out.

The song in question, _Now I’m Here_ , Roger thought to be pretty cut and dry but Freddie and Brian had been going back and forth on certain elements for days, their frustrations coming out in the form of insisting the back track was the issue.

“I’d love to see them try it,” said John, covering the only drum microphone that could’ve picked up his voice. Roger laughed, though he tried to hide it.

“We’d love to get in on the joke too,” spat Brian into the mic, the long hours starting to get to him.

Roger groaned and grabbed the microphone set over his hi-hat. “We’re taking a break, you two probably should as well.”

“We don’t have time—” began Freddie. Roger took his headphones off as quickly as he could, effectively shutting Freddie up. He didn’t look in their direction as he hurried off his drum kit and through the door.

Roger understood the stress, he really did, understood the anxiety of their record being a little late, of their previous records giving them almost zero profit back and this record set to do the same. But there was no point being annoyed with each other. Freddie was normally of the same thinking, in fact it was odd for Roger to be walking away rather than picking a fight with Brian, but that night was long and Roger didn’t blame him for getting touchy.

He poured himself some of room temperature coffee in the breakroom and sat in the vinyl chair, holding his breath, hoping to hear Brian heading into the booth to make some progress. He heard John leave the recording booth but no indication anyone else entered.

“I meant it,” said John as he whirled into the breakroom with Roger, “you played perfect.”

Roger raised his mug to him. “And you too.”

“I don’t see why we don’t just call it a night.” John poured his own coffee and sat in the chair opposite Roger. “Brian’s in one of his _moods_ and Freddie thinks we’re on the edge of a breakthrough, nothing’s going to come of this. Nothing good.”

“If they could both just,” said Roger, finishing with a groan. “The track’s almost done, it just doesn’t need to be such a production.”

“It doesn’t _need_ to be, no,” said John with a laugh. The four of them weren’t exactly known for their levelheadedness in the studio.

“We’ll do it _your_ way!” screamed Brian down the hall, the recording booth door slamming shut behind him.

“Progress!” said Roger with a giggle.

~~~

“I think it’s good,” said Roger. “Wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Well I think it’s shit,” said Freddie. He’d done three takes of his vocals and each time cut it off short, unsatisfied, unhappy.

“He’s doing this because I wouldn’t change the melody how he liked it—” began Brian, somewhere behind Roger in the booth. Roger heard John shush him.

“One more go, don’t stop even if you hate it,” said Roger.

Freddie rolled his eyes and signaled for the back track’s intro and guidance. Brian began his frustrated venting to John in low whispers at the back of the mixing room. Roger tried to tune it out and went through the motions of agreeing with Brian every time he was prompted, anything to try and speed the night up.

“Okay!” said Freddie as the back track faded out. “That’s it!”

“Like fuck that’s it!” screamed Brian. “You put nothing into that!”

Freddie, unable to hear Brian without the mic button pressed, only got the gist of what Brian had screamed through the soundproof glass and flipped him off. “Come in here sing it yourself if you’re so unhappy.”

Brian leaned over the producer to grab a hold of mic. “Put more energy into it Fred—”

“I’ve done my fucking best, you prick—”

“No you haven’t!”

“Oh fuck off—”

“Boys!” screamed Roger. “Settle this outside, I don’t want to hear any more of the bickering!”

“You’re one to talk—” began Freddie.

“Please, Fred,” said John, lunging forward to take the microphone.

Freddie sighed. “Fine, but only because I know Brian’s wrong.”

He took his headphones off before he could hear any response Brian had and took his time leaving the recording booth. Brian swore under his breath and met him in the hallway.

“You can go home,” said Roger to the producer. “It’s late, we’re not getting anything revolutionary out of them.”

“If you say so.” The producer picked up his jacket and stretched out his back before wishing both him and John luck and sneaking out and past the shouting fight in the hallway.

~~~

Roger took a long drag off his cigarette as Freddie’s vocals played. They were on the fifth recording since the producer left, he and Brian retreated to the hallway to argue after each take, occasionally switching off to let Brian try his hand at recording his guitars. Roger long since stopped listening to any of their points. The track was almost done, there was still some recording to do, and of course the final mixing which Roger always found to be the least interesting. He liked the creation and the final product but the intricate tweaking it took to get there was tedious. That being said, he didn’t trust his drum sound in anyone’s hands but his own.

“I think this one’s gonna make us millionaires,” said Roger as he took the chair the producer had been sitting in. It was far more comfortable and almost half the reason he’d told him to leave for the night.

“You think?” said John. He looked intently at the buttons Roger was pressing to hear the playback.

“Oh definitely,” said Roger, “and it’ll make Freddie and Brian _billionaires_.”

John smirked, trying not to laugh, trying to be neutral, but they both knew the other wasn’t too keen on the division of what little royalties they got. Par for the course for the rhythm section, Roger supposed. Being the rhythm, being younger, being less inclined to write a whole albums worth of songs, bonded them.

“If they can stop fighting, yes they’ll make billions,” said John. Roger wished that were a joke. Freddie and Brian had only just left after hearing Brian’s latest take on the guitar solo and getting into an argument about…

“What’re they fighting over this time?” said Roger. “I’ve forgot.”

“Freddie thinks the guitar’s too harsh for this,” said John with a shrug. A shrug meant he agreed with Freddie but didn’t want to get in the middle of it. Brian wasn’t very intimidating to Roger, but Roger had known him far longer and met him when he was a shy, awkward, gawky virgin. He was still awkward and gawky, and Roger wasn’t entirely sold on him not being a virgin, but he wasn’t shy. And that more assertive, more confident Brian was the one John met, the one John didn’t have the energy to stand up to.

“You know you can yell at Brian,” said Roger. He took another drag off his cigarette. “I do it all the time, it’s wonderful.”

John laughed despite himself. “I don’t want to argue. I’m the newest.”

“You’ve been in the band for three—nearly four years, Deaks. You’re not on eggshells.”

“I know but,” he ran his fingertips over the switchboard, not adjusting any of the dials but just feeling them, “is it really worth a fight?”

“I’ll fight just for the sake of fighting,” said Roger.

“I know you will,” laughed John.

“And I know _you_ will,” said Roger. He leant forward a bit after knocking the ash into the tray. “You don’t fool me, you’d get into just as many fights as I do if you weren’t so worried about the band falling apart.”

“Well,” John scooted a bit closer, “can you blame me? The bipolarity of those two is ridiculous, anything else added on top might sink this whole ship.”

Roger rolled his eyes. “Don’t you ever want to just break a couple instruments and storm out?”

“Sure,” said John like it was obvious, “but who does that help?”

“You.”

He shrugged again. “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know,” Roger blew smoke towards him and grinned as John did the same right back. “I think maybe you need to let loose more. You keep anything bottled up and it’ll explode.”

“Won’t the explosion be fun?” John’s expression was unreadable. His head tilted back, his cigarette limp in his fingers, his eyes black and hooded, a smirk stretching across his face. It reminded Roger of himself. Of how he looked when he was trying to get some stranger to go home with him.

“What’re you doing?” spat Roger, harsh, full of accusation and bite.

John’s grin was replaced by wide eyes and red cheeks as he sat up in his chair. “I wasn’t—”

“That’s it!” screamed Freddie, the door bursting open as he did.

“What?” said Roger. “Are you quitting?”

“No,” said Freddie with a playful pat to his head. “We’ve come to an agreement.”

“Is that true Brian?” said John, trying not to laugh at the way Brian trudged into the booth, totally defeated.

“It’s true,” snapped Brian. “Let’s all just go home, I’m sick of this place.”

Roger jumped up and tugged his jacket back on while Freddie consoled Brian over his loss. Brian had Freddie swear up and down that the compromise that night would work out in his favour in their next spat. Of course they always tried to keep score over who had had the final say however many times, but neither bothered to honour it in the heat of an argument.

The four of them headed out to the street, the cold air hitting them like a wall and sucking the air out of their lungs. It was nights like those that Roger really wished they hadn’t sold his van, or at very least that they made enough money to afford a new one. He crossed his arms tight over his chest and didn’t feel a familiar lump in one of his pockets.

“Fuck, I forgot my fags inside, wait up,” said Roger before hurriedly jogging back into the studio. He relished in the warmth as he trudged down the short little hall to the mixers booth and found his cigarettes sitting where he’d left them on the sound board.

“Rog,” said John’s voice somewhere behind him.

“Jesus John!” screamed Roger after he’d nearly thrown the pack across the room. “Don’t fucking scare me like that!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to.” said John with all the sincerity in the world.

They stood in a tense silence for a moment, John looking at him, Roger looking right back, neither moving from their spots in the door frame and next to the sound console respectively.

“Did you forget something?” offered Roger, wanting more than anything to leave.

“Yeah,” said John, his voice beginning to shake. “Earlier when I—”

“How’s Ronnie?” interrupted Roger. He said it with a smile, a genuine smile and more focused eye contact hoping to communicate to John to shut up, to move on. If John was flirting with him he didn’t want to know, he didn’t want to hear his explanation unless it was a clear no and the way John looked, all folded in on himself, made Roger worry it wasn’t a no. “She good? She’s? Good?”

“Uh,” stammered John, a little caught off guard, “yeah she is good.”

“Good, tell her I say hi,” said Roger. He clapped John’s shoulder and shoved past him to lead the two of them back out to the street to meet Freddie and Brian.

It was early on in their journey that the four of them got split up onto their designated lines home. Roger avoided John’s gaze, and he though maybe John avoided his too. It’d been a weird night, a night where _Freddie_ of all people refused to keep the peace, strange things were bound to happen and they could just as easily happen as be forgotten.

“What is it?” said Freddie. Their flats a mere few blocks away meaning they rode the whole line together.

“What do you mean?” said Roger.

“You’ve been staring at that sixpence the entire ride home,” said Freddie as the train rolled to a stop and the doors opened for a station that wasn’t their’s. Many people got off, a handful got on.

“That obvious?” said Roger with an awkward grin.

“Go on, tell me,” said Freddie, sympathy in his voice but a glint of curiosity and excitement in his eye.

Roger stuffed his hands further into his pockets and took a sharp breath in. “This might sound weird or...I don’t know, earlier, I feel like Deaky was flirting with me.”

“I flirt with you all the time,” said Freddie.

“Not as a joke, Fred, like I think he…” Roger’s words trailed off and his knee started bouncing.

“Think he what?” prompted Freddie.

Roger shrugged. “I’m thinking too much.”

“As per usual,” said Freddie. He pressed his shoulder to Roger’s. “John’s not of that sort, you must’ve just taken something wrong.”

“I guess.” Roger leaned his head back. “He tried to explain, or apologise maybe, I don’t know. I cut him off and ran back outside, I was so terrified to hear what he might say.”

“Would it be that bad?” said Freddie with a nervous laugh.

“It would,” said Roger. “If he were that way and interested in me, it would be a disaster. The whole band would fall apart, it would be so uncomfortable and awkward, we’d never get past it. I doubt we’d even stay friends.”

Freddie scoffed. “Your ego’s big enough for two.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Roger, a grin creeping onto his face.

“Well thank _God_ it was a misunderstanding, if Deaky had feelings for you the _world would implode_ because you’re far too desirable to move past—”

“Point made,” laughed Roger. “I guess I panicked.”

“I guess you did,” said Freddie with a snort as the train pulled into their station. The conversation on their walks home was light, Roger didn’t care to delve into any topic deeper than a surface level scratch. His mind elsewhere, his thoughts preoccupied with the image of John’s eyes raking over him, staring into him in a way they never had.


	2. Sheer Heart Attack II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I upload the last chapter last night? Yes! Am I uploading the second this afternoon? Yes! This fic is more of an "assembly required" fic, whereas the other ones are in progress as I post so these will come a bit quicker if that's all right! Please comment if you like! <3

**Sheer Heart Attack II**

“You’re sure?” said Roger as Mick’s assistant slathered vaseline over his face.

“Positive,” replied Mick.

“Come off it, Rog. He knows what he’s doing,” said Freddie, already decked out in vaseline. When Roger pictured the glamourous life of a rock star, an afternoon spent covering his friends in petroleum jelly for a photoshoot wasn’t immediately in his head.

“Won’t we just look sweaty?” said John, rubbing the stuff on his nose like sunscreen.

“Yes, but in a sexy sort of way,” said Mick, barely paying attention to the four of them as he set up. “More of a primal sweat.”

“Primal sweat?” mumbled John to himself but just loud enough that Roger heard him. He suppressed the giggle he felt coming and focused on the hands coating his neck. The small, delicate hands of the woman Mick brought with him. Roger couldn’t remember her name but he grinned down at her whenever he could. She wasn’t much for grinning back, at least she hadn’t been until Roger caught her eye with her hand on his collarbone.

“Focus, Rog,” said Brian across the room.

“I am,” replied Roger, his eyes locked on the assistant’s. He noticed her cheeks pinking up, her eyes averting, and her mouth twisting up in a barely hidden grin.

“All right, you’ve massaged him enough,” spat Mick. The hands on Roger snapped back quickly as the woman returned to Mick’s side. “Now just…lie down.”

The four of them did, all rigid, all unsure of what to do with their hands as they lay side by side under the elaborate but rickety camera rigged above them.

“Lie down like you know each other,” said Mick.

“Not with a lady present,” laughed Roger which earned him a kick from Brian.

“I think you mean _only_ with a lady present, Rog,” teased Freddie, which earned him a kick from Roger.

They were all about to earn kicks from Mick so they quickly arranged into less of a line more of a pile. Moving limbs here and there, switching orders, switching directions, twisting and turning until Mick stopped them with a sharp clap and an insistence that _this_ was _it_.

“How should we look?” said John.

“Sheer Heart Attack-y,” replied Mick. “Whatever you want the album to feel like.”

“And for God sakes behave,” sighed Freddie.

Roger couldn’t remember what his expression was by the end of it. He was so tired and unsure what the hell they were making. He loved the album, he gave each song the best he had, and he left the cover decisions to Freddie whose vision was far clearer than his own. He had no idea what a ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ expression looked like and he was fairly sure he hadn’t pulled one off in the photoshoot.

With the photo presumably taken, the four of them set about wiping off the vaseline sinking into their skin. Roger started in with his sleeve but stopped when Freddie started screaming bloody murder and took his top away from him.

Mick’s assistant pointed them in the direction of the bathroom where they each set about trying to wipe the vaseline off their faces and chests.

“Might as well get in the shower at this rate,” muttered Roger as he tried and failed to rinse the jelly out of his fringe under the faucet in the bath. “Looks fucking awful.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” groaned Freddie as he rinsed his arms off in the sink like a surgeon. Roger turned the bath off, the water too cold to really melt away the vaseline anyway, and stood to shake out his hair and piss off whoever caught the spray.

“God my skin’s so dry it’s soaking it right up,” said Brian which earned him a grimace from Freddie. “Wince all you want but I don’t have to scrub myself raw like you lot.”

“Hand me the towel,” said Freddie. Roger tossed it to him and waited patiently for his turn at the sink as John stepped up to the taps. “Alright, hurry up in here, I want dinner I’m absolutely starving.”

“We’re always _starving_ , Fred,” laughed Roger as Freddie shoved his way out of the tiny bathroom, Brian trailing behind him.

“I don’t know how well those turned out,” said John as he worked the soap into a lather. He rubbed the suds into his cheeks, across his nose, over his forehead in such a particular way. It had Roger mesmerised. The way his fingers ran over his skin, the way his skin shone from the soap, from the oil, it was all…interesting. “But Mick’s not one for a dud photoshoot I suppose.”

“No,” said Roger, suddenly aware that he’d left John’s comment unanswered. “No, I’m sure he got a few good ones.”

“There’s room for two,” said John taking a step to the side, offering Roger a share of the sink. Roger sidled in next to him and scrubbed his face clean, and watched John rinse his arms down before Roger did the same. The quiet between them only emphasised the closeness, the strange vulnerability of the glances shared in the mirror between rinses of their face, their hair, their hands, their arms. Roger didn’t know what to make of it, didn’t know why they weren’t laughing or joking around in that moment but he wouldn’t be the one to start.

Once he was mostly clean, he leant over the sink and splashed water up to his chest, a failed attempt at a poor idea.

“Come on,” teased John, “you’re smarter than that.”

“Am I?” laughed Roger as he stood up straight.

“Jury’s out,” replied John.

Without a word, without a thought, he reached behind Roger and took the towel Freddie’d set down and doused it under the running water. As if it were natural, normal, as if he did it every day, he then dragged that towel across Roger’s chest and tried to work the vaseline off his skin. His hand moved in small circles, his eyes focused entirely on his work.

“Deaky,” said Roger, snapping him out of it.

“Oh,” said John, cheeks pink, eyes averting before he muttered, “here.” He shoved the towel into Roger’s hand, and hurried out of the bathroom like he’d done something wrong.

And he had. The first time was a fluke, a misunderstanding even. The second time was clear. If John really was looking at him in any way other than friendly that was a problem. One that he didn’t know how to solve, how to broach even. One that made him uncomfortable, made his skin crawl, made his cheeks burn.

“For fuck’s sake, Roger—I’m _hungry_ ,” whined Freddie, appearing suddenly in the doorway. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?” said Roger.

“Like you’ve seen a ghost. Or our bank balance,” added Freddie with a laugh. He took a step into the bathroom and put his hand to his forehead in an almost motherly way.

“I,” said Roger, looking past Freddie to see who was in earshot, “I think he did it again.”

“Who did what?” said Freddie, his face full of anticipation for any gossip Roger might give him.

“I think Deaks tried to…” began Roger, “I don’t know.”

“Alert the tabloids, Deaky tried to do something maybe,” deadpanned Freddie, the hunger getting the better of him.

“Freddie, I’m serious, I think he’s…looking at me,” said Roger.

“God forbid—”

“It’s not a joke,” said Roger, tugged Freddie’s wrist, trying to convey how deadly serious he was.

Freddie snapped out of his jokey mood in an instant. “Why what happened?”

“He…” Roger couldn’t very well cite ‘looked at me in the mirror’ as part of it, after all he’d looked right back, he’d watched the way John scrubbed his arms and lathered his face. John doing the same thing couldn’t mean anything. But the way he, “rubbed the towel on me. To get the vaseline off my chest, he wet a towel and just started,” Roger mimed the circular motion of John’s touch.

“So?” said Freddie.

“So!” whispered Roger in a tense voice. “So, something’s… _wrong_.”

Freddie tried very hard not to smile and let out a deep sigh of frustration, one Roger heard a lot from him. “Rog, he’s not that way. He’s got Ronnie. And even _by some miracle_ he were, _which he isn’t_ , he’s a grown man. He’s not going to do anything to make you uncomfortable.”

“He already did,” said Roger, his arms out wide in indignation.

“Rog,” said Freddie as he put a hand on his shoulder, “I guarantee he spaced out and forgot where he was, who he was with, and all that. You’re getting jumpy over nothing.”

“What if it’s something,” said Roger.

“It’s Deaky, you really think he’d do anything to fuck up your friendship or this band?” Freddie pushed past him to get to the mirror. “You think very highly of your masculine wiles but I think Deaky has escaped your charm, Rog. As much as you wish he hadn’t.”

“I don’t wish he hadn’t,” spat Roger. “Just the thought of it is so…”

“We get it,” snapped Freddie, “you aren’t that way. You don’t need to prove it by being disgusted.”

“I’m not disgusted I’m just,” Roger shivered, “I mean it’s Deaky.”

“Uh huh,” said Freddie dismissively.

“Oh what do you care,” groaned Roger. Freddie’s silence filled the room for a few moments before he decided his hair was as good as it would get and they could all go get dinner.

~~~

Roger sat away from John during dinner, and stayed away when they got their pints. Freddie was right, Roger knew that deep down. Knew that his ego had gotten the best of him and those few isolated moments with John were blown so far out of proportion they were unrecognisable, but even so, he didn’t look him in the eye very long. Didn’t want to give him the impression of interest in _any_ capacity.

Until the beer loosened him up.

After a pint or two he forgot to be so scared of John’s gaze and was shouting across the table at him as they talked. Every time John met his eyes his cheeks were pinker than before, his smile wider. Roger knew it was the beer talking, but he couldn’t help feel a little sad that John wasn’t interested. Not because he wanted it to go anywhere of course, but because having someone as good looking as John be interested in _him_ would be a real compliment. He wondered if, maybe that wasn’t why he’d exaggerated those few encounters with John to the point of worry.

“I’m beat,” said Freddie. “Mick is too intense, one conversation with him just saps my energy.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t because you had red meat for dinner,” said Brian. “Honestly when was your last vegetable?”

“Oh fuck off,” said Freddie, massaging his temples. “Who’s for heading back?”

“I am,” said Brian.

“We just got here,” said Roger.

“We’ve been here an hour,” replied Freddie. “I’m tired.”

“But it’s barely eleven,” said John.

“I’m. _Tired_ ,” repeated Freddie.

“Me too,” said Brian. He shoved Roger out of the booth so he could stand and stretch. Freddie slid out of the booth with him. “You two staying?”

Roger looked to John. “You want to?”

“Yeah sure.”

“Suit yourselves,” said Freddie. “I’m going home I’m taking a hot shower, forcing this horrid vaseline out of my skin, and going the fuck to bed. Goodnight.”

“When did you get so old!” called Roger as Freddie and Brian headed to the door. He downed the rest of Freddie’s pint and turned to John with a grin. “It’s like they don’t even want to be rockstars.”

John smirked from behind his pint. Roger’s smile faded the more he noticed John’s. The drinks were getting to him, letting his mind travel down strange avenues. Where once he was panicked that his close friend wanted more from him, now he was curious why he didn’t. Wondering what he’d have to do to change that.

And the only thing he could think of to drown out those thoughts was—

“I’ll get the next round.”

~~~

“What if the album tanks?” slurred Roger, the two of them walking out of the pub in presumably the direction of their flats, though neither could quite remember which way they came from.

“Then it tanks,” said John quite calmly. “The other two tanked, why shouldn’t this one.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re an electrician or whatever,” said Roger.

“And you’re a…dentist?” said John with a laugh. “I’m sorry, I should know this.”

“No, you’re right,” said Roger. “A boring fucking dentist.”

“It’s good pay,” said John earnestly. “I think you’d be a very entertaining dentist too. One that people recommend over and over, and tell stories about.”

Roger laughed and stumbled into John’s path a bit. “All my life I’ve dreamt of being a dentist people chatted about.”

“That’s not how I meant it,” said John as they took a turn down a road Roger was sure _one_ of them lived on. “I meant your personality is so big, no matter what you do people’ll remember you.”

Roger turned to him, his steps falling a bit more clumsily to match. “Thanks, Deaks. I think.”

“It was a compliment,” said John, reassuring him. Roger stumbled again but John caught his fall and threaded an arm through Roger’s. “You’re welcome.”

They continued down the road in a comfortable silence, the cold air keeping them alert and the streetlamps keeping them from stepping in the cracks of the pavement.

“Hey,” said John, his voice piercing through the silent street, “am I paranoid or were you avoiding me for awhile?”

“Oh,” said Roger with a laugh.

“Oh what?” replied John in a hurry. “Did I piss you off or something?”

“No, no, not at all. This is gonna sound funny,” said Roger, eyeing John and not really thinking about what might come of what he said, “but earlier I thought you might’ve been looking at me.”

“I’m looking at your right now, Rog, not so funny,” said John with a laugh.

“No,” Roger laughed, “I meant _looking_ , like flirting or something. Totally panicked.”

“Oh,” said John.

“I know it sounds so ridiculous, conceited too,” said Roger. His arm pulled back as he took a step forward without John.

“I…” said John as he unthreaded his arm with Roger’s. “Would that be so bad?”

“Oh, fuck’s sake,” muttered Roger. He could feel his face heating up not just from the beer but from the embarrassment, the shame, the discomfort. John’s eyes were sad, his expression so desperately trying to be devoid of emotion as he read the clear rejection on Roger’s face.

“I should go—I’ll—I’ll see you…sometime,” stammered John, his cheeks bright red, his eyes never really meeting Roger’s. He waved a small goodbye to Roger before turning and shuffling back up the street, likely headed further away from home.

Roger wanted to just let him go, wanted to pretend it never happened, to never discuss it again, to never think of it again.

“Deaky, wait!” called Roger after him. The news was sobering enough that he could jog over to him with no trips or falls along the way.

“Please don’t say anything,” said John once Roger caught up to him.

“I’m going to,” said Roger adamantly. But the street felt much too exposed, much too public a place to be talking about something so personal, so secret. “Come on,” said Roger as he tugged John’s wrist behind him into an alley. Not much more private but the walls felt a bit more protective of their conversation.

“I’m drunk,” said John as he leaned against the brick wall, as if drunkenness would erase what he’d said. Roger sighed and pressed himself to the bricks too, his shoulder almost touching John’s.

“You’re not that drunk,” said Roger. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” said John, defeated.

“Don’t be sorry,” said Roger, unsure if he meant it. “But I can’t.”

“I know,” said John with a sad laugh, “I know you, I never should’ve said anything.”

“There’s just too much at risk with the band, and I couldn’t stand to lose you as a friend,” said Roger. He didn’t notice the silence that followed his words until John broke it.

“What?”

“What?” said Roger, turning to meet John’s eyes.

“The band? Our friendship?” said John.

“Yes, the band, our friendship.”

“Those are the only reasons?” said John.

Roger stilled for a moment, staring at John, and wondered why those were the only things that came to mind. Why he hadn’t just outright said they weren’t on the same page, that they weren’t the same.

John shuffled closer against the brick, touched his boot to Roger’s, pressed their shoulders together. Roger noticed himself not pulling away, not standing upright and walking out of the alley. John turned to him, eyes full of intent, and leaned into him.

“I’m—I’m flattered, but,” began Roger, his words getting cut off by John’s lips meeting his. Roger turned his head away, almost immediately, almost. John sighed and backed off just a bit, just enough to meet Roger’s eyes.

“I love you, Deaks, but not like this,” said Roger.

“You’re sure?” said John, not with confidence, not with arrogance, but with genuine curiosity, earnest acceptance of whatever answer Roger might give.

Roger stared at his face, lit dimly by the streetlamps, by the moon, his eyes shining, his lips glistening. He couldn’t be sure, couldn’t say with any certainty that he didn’t want him, not in that moment at least. Roger inched forward, subtle and carelessly, but it was answer enough for John to lean in the rest of the way.

Their lips met harsher, more biting, more intense. Roger felt John’s tongue sweep across his bottom lip, and he wanted it. He wanted to feel John’s tongue move with his own, wanted to get that little bit closer to him, wanted to grab his waist and pull him in, wanted to run all the way back to his flat and pin him down. But why. Since when had he been so willing to work in such foreign ways.

“No,” muttered Roger, breaking away from John only briefly.

“What?” said John, his lips dragging across Roger’s jaw, threatening to go down his neck had Roger not shoved him. Too hard, with too much force, too much anger, he shoved John off and away from him.

“Fucking stop!” spat Roger.

“I’m sorry,” said John, his hands in the air in surrender as he caught himself from falling..

“This is fucked up, Deaks, really fucked up,” said Roger with no real conviction. He pushed himself off the wall and eyed John. He looked equal parts stunned and embarrassed. “Don’t—don’t you ever mention this. Okay? This didn’t happen.”

“Okay,” replied John quickly.

With that Roger turned and hurried out of the alleyway. He could hear John doing the same somewhere behind him, but he didn’t look back. He shoved his hands as deep into his pockets as they would go and focused only on the pavement ahead of him.


	3. A Night At The Opera I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thanks to anyone who commented, I really look forward to them! I hope you like this chapter! I know they're churning out a little fast than usual for me since it's already written, I hope you like that!! Sorry if you don't! Please comment if you like!! <3

**A Night At The Opera I**

“Not the coffee machine!” screamed John and Brian in unison.

“Oh so _now_ you’ll take me seriously?” spat Roger.

“For fuck’s sake, Rog, you wrote a love song to a car, how are we supposed to take that seriously?! It’s a joke!” screamed Brian.

“ _You’re_ a fucking joke! _Twat!”_

“Very mature, Rog!” screamed Brian.

“It’s a good fucking song, not everything we write has to be a fucking operatic post apocalyptic hellscape!” Roger slammed the coffee pot down, hoping he broke it in the process but knowing he didn’t.

“I’d be happy with any other song! No not everything has to be poetry but we can at least elevate ourselves above shoving your cock in a muffler!” Brian picked Roger’s lyrics sheet up. “Or what? Jerking off the gear shift?! I mean honestly Roger what did you expect to hear from this?!”

“You don’t like it cause it’s not yours!”

“That’s not fucking true—”

“Yes it fucking is! Do you know how much less than you and Freddie, Deaky and I make just ‘cause you two fuckers write the lyrics—”

“And the melodies—”

“And we write the fucking rhythms!”

“Deaks,” said Brian, turning to John, “are you unhappy with your standing in the band too?”

“Er,” began John. Earlier he’d had his fun poking at Roger’s song but with the attention turned onto him he shrank. “I think it’s fine I guess…”

“You think it’s fucking fine?!” screamed Roger. “That’s not what you said when you and Ronnie almost got fucking evicted you spineless fucking—”

“Don’t drag him into it you selfish prick!” screamed Brian.

“Are we all still fighting?” said Freddie, his head poking in through the door from outside.

“Roger’s not satisfied with his pay and he’s taking it out on us by writing a car fucking song,” said Brian with a smug grin.

“What do you mean not satisfied with your pay?” said Freddie, a look of concern painting his face as he stepped further into the kitchen to rejoin the conversation after initially trying to let them fight it out.

“Deaks?” prompted Roger. John just avoided his gaze. “Fuckin— _Fine_. I guess I’m on my own, I’m the arsehole, I’m the dick, put my song on the record or don’t, put my drums on the record or don’t, keep me in this fucking band or don’t—I don’t fucking care anymore!”

With that he stormed out of the kitchen and did his best to slam the barn door that rolled to a close behind him before hurrying off to the studio.

He grabbed a guitar off the wall and angrily strapped it on. He knew he was right, knew that if Freddie had pitched the same song Brian would’ve kept his mouth shut and made it a single. But since he was the drummer, ‘just’ the drummer, his song got torn to shreds, based off lyrics no less. Why John hadn’t taken that opportunity to finally tell Brian off about the striking disparity between their pay, was beyond Roger.

The week they came to Ridge Farm, John had said Veronica had to miss work to avoid their landlord forcibly moving them out while she was gone since rent was so late. Something Freddie and Brian had never dealt with but something Roger had come dangerously close to himself. No, none of them made mass amounts of money, none of them were billionaires, millionaires, or even thousand-aires. They were all broker than they’d ever been before, but he and John were worse off. And if all it took to be better off was forcing his song everyone hated onto the album then so be it. Fuck them all and fuck John.

He had the demo ready in an hour and didn’t bother to gauge the reactions of the sound engineer that ran the tape for him. It wasn’t about how good the song was anymore.

~~~

“Oh fuck off,” sighed Brian as Roger played the three of them his demo.

“No,” said Roger through gritted teeth.

“Got a feel for my automobile?” said Freddie with a furrowed brow. Freddie wasn’t one to criticise songs. When Roger put in Modern Times Rock ’n’ Roll, Brian called it trite but Freddie said nothing. When Roger pitched Loser In The End, Brian called it childish and Freddie complimented Roger’s guitar playing. When he pitched Tenement Funster, Brian called it self-congratulatory and Freddie called it fun. To have Freddie visibly trying not to side with Brian wasn’t a good sign. “Maybe we can shift the lyrics around?”

“No,” said Roger. “No shifting of the fucking lyrics, this is what I wrote.”

“Well as per usual, Roger, your lyrics are that of a secondary schooler, this is—” began Brian, only to be cut off by Freddie swatting his shoulder.

“You’re right, it’ll go,” said Freddie.

“Excuse me?” said Brian.

“He’s part of the band, he can have a say,” replied Freddie.

“I want it to be the B side for Borhap,” replied Roger, clenching his jaw as he doubled down.

“No,” said Freddie, as if it were obvious.

“I’ve had to borrow off my sister two months in a row for rent, you know damn well the singles are where most of our money is going to come from. Your song is six minutes, its tiring it’s slow, my song’s the total opposite, they work well together,” said Roger.

“Reid keeps saying Borhap’s not going to be the single—” began Brian.

“But we all fucking know it will be,” spat Roger. “And when it is, I want this on the B-side.”

“Roger,” said Freddie, his voice gentle as if consoling a child. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”

“Either it’s on the B-side or…” began Roger, unsure of what his final threat would be.

“Or what?” said Brian. Roger’s head was still empty of viable threats. Brian laughed. “Well when you put it like _that_.”

“Do you want me to quit is that it Brian?!” screamed Roger, escalating everything as per usual.

“Of course not!” said Freddie, making sure Brian didn’t say anything stupid.

“God—if you’re going to throw a tantrum every time you write a shit song and it doesn’t get released as a single then yes, fucking quit the fucking band!” shouted Brian.

“Put this fucking song on the B-side or, or,” Roger’s eyes darted around the studio, looking for something he could break or otherwise threaten them with. But his eyes locked on the cupboard they kept the nests of cords in, along with the odd pedals and spare parts. Without another word Roger hurried over to it and threw out all of its contents before climbing inside.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” shouted Brian as Roger shut the door on himself.

“I’m staying in here until it’s the B-side!” replied Roger, his voice echoing around the wooden walls of the cupboard.

“Don’t be so fucking ridiculous,” groaned Brian.

“Roger,” whined Freddie, desperate for reconciliation.

“I’m not dealing with this,” said Brian. “You two can entertain this fucking child on your own.” Brian made a point to kick the cupboard on his way out. He could demean him, kick him all he wanted, Roger was getting is fucking song released as a single, hell or high water.

~~~

Roger had dozed off in the cupboard, he’d been in there for longer than he could gauge, when someone knocked on the door.

“Rog,” said Freddie in a sing song voice. “You missed dinner, aren’t you hungry?”

“B-side,” replied Roger.

“Rog, I love you like my own brother, but I don’t know if your song should be the B-side. You know how tight we are right now, if this album doesn’t do well then we’re fucked. I can’t make your song the B-side just to please you we have to think about what’s best for the album,” said Freddie, tapping his fingers against the cupboard.

“My song is strong enough, it should be the B-side,” replied Roger firmly.

“It’s been almost three hours Roger, you’re going to injure yourself staying in there all curled up,” said Freddie.

“Then I guess you should make my song the B-side.”

Freddie sighed, deep and frustrated but unwilling to start a fight. “Let me talk to the others. Please don’t piss yourself in there while I’m gone.”

“No promises.”

Roger heard his footsteps leave and disappear out the door that swung open. He was suddenly more aware of his breathing, of his own heartbeat, of the darkness of the cupboard which previously had lulled him into a hazy sleep. He could feel the anxiety creep up his spine. It might’ve taken over him, forced him out of the cupboard had there not been a second knock.

“Freddie said you’re still adamant,” said John.

“What the fuck do you care,” spat Roger.

“You can’t have only enemies Rog,” said John, Roger could practically hear the smug smile on his face. “I didn’t want to fight, that doesn’t mean I disagree.”

“I didn’t hear one word of defence for my song,” said Roger.

“I’m sorry,” said John. “I’m grateful too, that you’re doing this. Maybe this is the push they need to divvy what little we earn up a bit more evenly.”

“You know, if you put the bass line on it, I’ll give you half the writing credits, we can split this song,” said Roger, only then, only when he rested his cheek against the wood, did he realise how sore his shoulders and neck were.

“Oh…that’s okay,” said John.

“It’s a good song.”

“I…” trailed John. “The quality isn’t the point though.”

“Save it,” spat Roger.

“You didn’t like my song. I seem to recall you screaming ‘what is this, the fucking Women’s Institute’,” said John, he had a point. “We can still enjoy the spirit of them, and I do enjoy the spirit of this. But aren’t you hungry?”

“No,” said Roger flatly. “I’m actually considering setting up my bedroom in here.”

“Alright!” screamed Freddie’s voice. It echoed around the room along with the sound of the door slamming open, “Brian’s in! Will you get the fuck out of that cupboard.”

“You mean it?” said Roger. “I don’t have to do anything in return, it’s just the B-side?”

“Yes,” said Freddie, tugging the cupboard door open while Roger tugged it shut.

“You swear?” said Roger.

“Yes, darling, I swear on your life, on mine, on Brian’s, on Deaky’s now get your fucking ass out of that fucking cupboard,” said Freddie with one final tug on the door that blew it wide open.

Roger blinked at the sudden flood of light and splayed his legs out onto the floor before standing up and stretching his sore back, his sore shoulders, his sore neck. “Now see was that so hard?”

“Fuck you,” said Freddie with a giggle. “Mind you, if you pull this again, Brian is well within his rights to kill you.”

“Understood,” said Roger. He crossed his arm across his chest to stretch out the tense muscle.

“I’m going to my room, I’ve sent Brian to his,” said Freddie. “If I find out you two somehow managed to fight from separate rooms _I’ll_ quit the fucking band.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Roger with a cheeky grin that Freddie ignored as he made his way out. Roger turned to John. “What was dinner?”

“Come on, I’ll heat it up for you,” said John, clapping Roger’s sore shoulders and ushering him out of the studio.

~~~

John stood in the little kitchen and scrubbed the pan he’d used to fry up some breakfast sausages for Roger. Roger might’ve felt bad asking him to do it had John also spent three hours in a cupboard fighting for their civil liberties.

“This is amazing, Deaky,” said Roger, taking an enormous bite of the shepherd’s pie they’d had for dinner.

“I just heated it up,” said John. “Paul got it brought in.”

“Yes but you heated it up so excellently,” said Roger. “And thank you for the sausages.”

“No problem but, Brian might be right, you do eat too much meat,” said John.

“Please,” said Roger, theatrically imploring John with an outstretched hand, “I’m trying to heal, don’t mention his name.”

“So dramatic,” laughed John as he circled a towel in and around the pan he’d washed. Roger watched his motions, his hands had such a particular grip from playing bass, Roger couldn’t help notice it. Never too tight, never too lose. Firm but gentle, his fingers never having to press harder than they needed. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” said Roger, snapping out of his fixation on John’s hand, “just my shoulders.”

“Oh?” John bent down to put the pan away. “Three hours spent hunched over hurt your shoulders? I can’t imagine why.”

“Fuck off.” Roger reached his right hand to his left shoulder and hoped to work out some of the knots to no avail. “The price I pay for equality.”

“For tantrums,” corrected John. “Want a shoulder rub? Payment for the rhythm section protest you held on our behalf?”

Roger stared at him for a second. He didn’t like it. Ever since that night he’d tried to keep his nights alone with John to a minimum, and when they did happen he kept a very safe physical distance, kept the conversation light. They’d gone down a path that night that Roger preferred to pretend didn’t exist and he couldn’t very well do that if John’s fingers were working every tension out of his muscles.

And yet he said, “okay.”

John dried his hands and got behind Roger. His hands were tentative when they came to rest on Roger’s shoulders. And though he didn’t like they had this tension between them, he was glad to know he wasn’t the only one to feel it. John’s thumbs started massaging deep circles into his tight shoulders. Roger couldn’t help when his eyes slipped closed at the feeling of it.

“Hard enough?” said John.

“Harder,” replied Roger. John’s thumbs paused for a moment before getting deeper into Roger’s back, really forcing out the pain and tension in his muscles as Roger practically laid forward on his plate, lost in the feeling of John’s hands on him. With his eyes closed he could really feel each intricate movement of John’s hands, and he could hear each little breath he took, each little choked breath as he worked his fingers deep into Roger. “’S good.”

“You’re really tight,” said John. Roger shivered. “Your muscles—your muscles are really tight.”

“Don’t stop,” sighed Roger, his voice catching and whining halfway through.

“Fuck,” muttered John, “Rog…”

“Yeah?” breathed Roger, just barely daring to look over his shoulder at him. One hand snaked up his chest to cover John’s hand as he slowed down his ministrations.

“I can,” John swallowed hard, “I can do it better if you lie down. It’s better for your back that way.”

Roger knew where that would go, knew how they’d end up, though he had no idea why that was. He knew if he said yes he’d end up down that road he didn’t want to know the name of, but in the brief moments he had to consider it, John stopped massaging his shoulders. Roger, so desperate for his touch, found himself wanting to say yes, wanting to run up to one of their bedrooms and…let it go from there.

“My room’s quiet,” offered John, his face red and his breathing erratic. Roger felt something stir in the pit of his stomach. Something he didn’t like, not from John. It didn’t feel right, but at the same time it very much did.

“Okay,” said Roger.

“Okay,” said John with a shaking breath out. “Um, you should finish the food I guess.”

Roger turned in his chair, just enough to look up at John, unsure of what he was doing, unsure of why he was doing it, and more importantly why he wasn’t resisting it. “Let’s go now.”

“Okay.” John, as timid as ever rushed to throw Roger’s plate of half eaten food in the fridge while Roger tried and failed to talk himself out of it.

Roger stood from the little bar in their kitchen and shoved the stool underneath with a loud screech that made them both wince. John stood at the end of the bar, his eyes flitting all over Roger, his fingers drumming on the laminate. He looked almost unsure that Roger would follow him, that Roger would follow through. He wished he were as unsure about his own intentions as John. Wished he weren’t so desperate for something he was so sure he didn’t ever want.

“Ah, there you are, Deaky,” said Freddie, skidding into the room out of nowhere. Roger jumped. Nothing about his posture was a giveaway, nothing about his position either. But he knew he’d been about to do something awful and every nerve ending in his body jolted when he got caught. “I thought you’d gone up to bed so I went to your room but you weren’t there so I went back to the studio but you weren’t there so—anyway Veronica’s on the phone for you in the uh, the living room, or the study? That weird little parlour at the front—the _parlour_ that’s what it’s called—anyway she wants to say goodnight, so does little baby Robert so, that’s uh…it.”

“Well, I guess,” John turned to Roger, “I should go talk to Ronnie.”

“You guess? You definitely should—she’s been on hold while I ran around the entire fucking farm the poor thing,” said Freddie. “Hurry up!”

John stood for a moment, still and contemplative. “Night Rog.”

“Night Deaky,” replied Roger.

“Night Deaky” called Freddie as John hurried out to catch the phone. “Did you get dinner?”

“Er, yeah, Deaky heated up the pie and some sausages,” said Roger. “I actually put it away, he wouldn’t let me eat alone but I didn’t want to keep him up. Now that he’s gone…” Roger went to the fridge and pulled out his plate, stuffing an entire sausage into his mouth before he’d sat down.

“Sitting in a dark cupboard sure does work up an appetite.”

“Mhm,” replied Roger as he shoveled shepherd’s pie into his already-full mouth.

“Are you okay?” said Freddie, he appeared at Roger’s side and rested his arms on the countertop.

Roger didn’t want to say anything at all, didn’t want to let the thoughts occupy his head for a moment longer. But he couldn’t help it. It didn’t make sense, on paper he was totally put off, disgusted by the thought of trying it on with a man, it just wasn’t his cup of tea. It made him uncomfortable to think a friend had eyes for him. On paper, John kissing him, John touching him should’ve been a big embarrassing nightmare for the both of them, and yet he didn’t hate it. No, he liked it. Wanted more of it. So much more of it he would’ve slept with him moments earlier. But he couldn’t put all this on Freddie, couldn’t put it on himself, couldn’t say any of this out loud. He swallowed the enormous bite he’d taken and focused very hard on not saying a word to Freddie. Forcing it all down with everything he had.

“Rog?” said Freddie. “You in there?”

“I’m fine,” said Roger. Those distracting thoughts, those awful, embarrassing thoughts wouldn’t stay down. They were begging to come out and find comfort with Freddie. And then, all at once, they were bursting forward, just not in the way he expected them to. Before he knew it he was rushing to the sink and burying his head in it as the shepherd’s pie and sausages made a reappearance.

“Oh dear,” said Freddie somewhere behind him. His hand was splayed across Roger’s back in an instant. “You poor thing.”

“I’m okay,” coughed Roger, his voice hoarse and decidedly not okay. He wretched horribly once more, got sick once more, Freddie’s hand stayed on his back, occasionally pulling his hair out of the way when it fell forward as Roger’s whole body shook. Once he’d started on the dry heaves he knew he was out of the woods. He spat, rinsed his mouth out under the tap, and rinsed the sink out as well.

“You alright?” said Freddie.

Roger, sweaty and shaking, nodded vigourously. “I’m fine.”

“Are you ill?” said Freddie. He reached up behind Roger and grabbed a tea towel off the shelves, ran it under the water and wiped Roger’s face off for him.

“No,” said Roger, “no I’m fine.”

“Then what was that about?”

“I,” Roger coughed, “okay, maybe I’m ill.”

“You ought to get to bed, you’re white as a sheet. I’ll bring you up some medicine—well I’ll find some medicine first and then bring it up,” said Freddie. He patted Roger’s face dry and put a hand on his forehead. “You’re not even warm.”

“I think I’m fine, really,” said Roger. “Allergies, or something.”

“Do allergies make you get sick?” said Freddie.

“All the time,” lied Roger. “It’s the country air that does it to me sometimes.”

“Oh,” said Freddie, mostly convinced. “I guess no medicine will help that.”

“No it won’t, and I don’t need anything, I’m really okay, I just need rest.”

“Okay,” Freddie looked like a nervous mother, like he wanted to nurse Roger back to health, “well goodnight, Roger, try and get some good sleep.”

“I will, I promise, night Fred,” said Roger. He hurried to his room, his stomach growling, dying to be filled again. Roger wouldn’t risk it, not right then anyway. If the price he had to pay for ignoring the elephant in the room was an empty stomach, it was well worth it.

~~~

Roger woke up the next morning filled to the brim with guilt. Guilt over something he hadn’t even done. But fuck, he might as well have. At very least his shoulders weren’t still sore when he sat up and contemplated staying in bed all day. He got dressed as slow as he could and avoided any mirrors, he couldn’t bear to look at himself, he didn’t think he’d recognise his own reflection at this point.

And though he hadn’t gone through with anything, when he walked into a kitchen full of people he couldn’t help but feel shy, as if everyone in the room knew. He sat next to Freddie at the bar, John slid him a mug of coffee before returning to stirring the eggs.

“Look at us,” said Freddie swaying to one side to bump his shoulder against Roger’s and swaying to the other to do the same to Brian, “all awake at the same time, eating breakfast just before noon. How domestic.”

“We’re not eating yet,” said Brian.

“And if you keep that up, _you’re_ not eating at all,” said John.

“Actually, Brian,” Freddie tried and failed to cross his legs under the short table but in the process jostled everyone around, “why can vegetarians eat eggs?”

“It’s an egg,” said Brian.

“Oh—yeah,” John cocked his hip, “isn’t it like caviar?”

“Can vegetarians have caviar?” said Freddie.

“I’ve never had caviar,” said Brian.

Freddie swatted him. “We can’t afford caviar, that’s not the same thing as being unable to eat it.”

“There’re no hard and fast rules,” said Brian, “but it’s generally accepted that you can have animal by-products.”

“But this isn’t like cheese,” said John, “this would, potentially, have been a chicken. So you have to kill the…what the chicken baby. The…chicklet?”

“It’s just a ‘chick’,” said Brian.

“Are you implying that every carton of eggs is fertilised?” said Freddie.

John stayed silent for a moment. “Are they not?”

Freddie and Brian burst out laughing, Roger joined in a bit late and with no real feeling behind his own laughter. The only one who noticed the lack of laughter in his eyes was John as their gazes met. Briefly, Roger wouldn’t linger on him too long.

“Soups on,” said John as he scooted portions of the scrambled eggs onto four plates. “I’ve got half a mind not to feed any of you.”

“We’re sorry,” said Freddie through a giggle.

“Yes that was very heartfelt,” said John with a wide grin.

The hints of laughter quieted as they ate their breakfasts. The occasional scrape of forks against plates breaking the silence as their words stopped. Roger kept his eyes on his eggs, focusing solely on each bite he took. But occasionally he’d look up and watch John’s jaw flex as he stood and ate on the other side of the bar. He’d return his focus to his eggs, maybe even his coffee, but it would undoubtedly end up back on John’s face. He was so caught up in staring at John he hadn’t noticed when he started staring back. Roger’s eyes raked across his face, taking note of how smooth and soft his skin looked, when his eyes met John’s. He could feel his face heating up as they sat there, locked in a silent conversation that Roger didn’t want to be a part of. Though he couldn’t say he enjoyed the circumstances, seeing John’s cheeks turn a lovely shade of pink offered him some comfort, some solidarity.

“Okay!” said Freddie with a loud clap, totally oblivious of Roger and John’s red faces. “What songs are on the docket?”

“Well,” sighed Brian, “we have Roger’s song.”

“Yes we do,” said Roger in as confident a voice as he could muster. “We’ve got your song too.”

“Which one? I wrote a lot,” said Brian with a bite.

“The shit one,” replied Roger.

“Please,” groaned Freddie, “not yet. Let’s record Roger’s song and _then_ you two can rip each other’s hair out like pre teen girls.”

“That’s all I ask,” said Roger with a grin he couldn’t hide, he was glad to hear Brian stifle a laugh at the other end of the bar.

“Alright,” Freddie hopped off his barstool, “battle stations!”

They all three groaned as Freddie opened the door to the outside and let too much sunlight in for their liking. Brian collected their plates as Freddie strode out to the studio. John ran the sink and rinsed them off as Brian handed them to him, Roger set about putting away the eggs and drinking the last bit of the coffee.

“So,” began Brian as Roger headed for the door, “would you like to play the guitars on this one or shall I?” Brian grabbed his half empty mug and hurried to join Roger.

“I’m a much better guitar player than you, I’d prefer if you did the drums,” said Roger.

Brian rolled his eyes but Roger saw him fighting a grin again. “You coming John?”

“Yes, let me just start the next pot of coffee,” said John.

“Okay—“ began Brian.

“Actually, Rog, can I talk to you,” said John, his words coming out faster than he could think them.

“No,” replied Roger quickly, a bit panicked that John would dare say anything in front of anyone else. “No we don’t have anything to talk about. Hurry up, the bass on this song should be fun.”

“Oh…kay,” said John.

Roger didn’t care to comfort him past that and hurried out the door, Brian close behind him.

“The fuck was that? Are you mad at Deaky?” said Brian.

“No, we were just,” Roger stuffed his hands in his pockets while he thought of an excuse, “just talking last night about the song, can’t bear to hear any more notes that’s all.”

“Oh,” said Brian. If he didn’t believe Roger, he didn’t show it.

~~~

Roger had his headphones on for most of the recording time. Either he was doing the vocals or the drums and both were a great excuse for not being able to hear, not being able to focus on anything but the song. He only looked away from the drums to look for his cues from Freddie or the producer in the booth. John hovered near him, bass in hand, but for all Roger cared he was alone. And thankfully the studio mostly cleared when Roger did his vocals. Brian left to fiddle with the guitar and John followed him out. Freddie stayed to coach him and keep him on tempo, something he had a hard time doing when he was the one singing.

“Take a break,” said Freddie into his headphones. “Your voice is sounding strained when you hit high notes.”

“It always sounds strained, I have a raspy voice,” said Roger, emphasising the rasp.

“Go drink hot tea, do some warmups. You won’t like these takes until you do,” said Freddie.

“If I go in there and make myself tea and come back out to find you’ve recorded all the vocals, I’ll beat you,” said Roger.

“Trust me darling, I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Freddie with a scoff. Roger rolled his eyes and flipped him off before setting his headphones down on the microphone and meandering out of the studio.

Roger moved about the kitchen with his own song stuck in his head. He put the kettle on and went about trying to find a teabag, any old one would do really. Freddie had his favourites and stuff he wouldn’t touch, Roger drank what he could get his hands on. He interrupted his own humming to mutter a quick ‘yes!’ when he found the tea Brian had hid.

“Hey,” said John behind him. Roger jumped and bashed his head on the top of the cupboard when he did. “Oh—sorry!”

“Dammit John,” groaned Roger as he stood up, rubbing the sore spot on his head, “what the fuck is it with you and sneaking up on me?”

“I don’t mean to, I thought you heard me walk in,” said John with an awkward laugh.

“You’ll startle me into a heart attack one of these days,” sighed Roger. He turned around and searched for a new mug. There were only about seven in the household total so if one person left one in a bedroom or forgot to wash theirs they’d be without their coffee and tea. Roger, upon seeing the empty mug cupboard realised he’d left a mug in his bedroom, and one in the studio, and one in the study. So he grabbed a soup bowl.

“Early for tea? What about the coffee?” said John.

“For my voice,” said Roger. “Fred thinks I wore it out too quick.”

“Ah.”

Roger knew why John was there and for that reason was hesitant to turn around, hesitant to meet his eyes and hear him stumble over his words trying to get them out. He’d ask him about it and Roger wouldn’t have the answers. He didn’t understand what happened, at least he didn’t want to, and he didn’t know why or when he’d become to willing to try something so _new_. He didn’t want to talk about it or make it real, he wanted to ignore it, or at very least laugh it off. But John wasn’t the type for that.

So Roger turned to face him, a little off put by how close he was standing in their cramped little kitchen. “Did you need something?”

“Yes,” said John, his voice steady but his hands shaking and fidgeting. “Last night—”

“Let me stop you there,” said Roger. “We were tired…I’d been in a cupboard for three hours, it was a long night. We can write the whole thing off and forget it.”

“Can we?” said John. He took a tentative step into Roger. While it was clear in how jerky his motions were, how unsure his foot was, that John wasn’t confident about what he was doing, Roger still felt, somehow, even less sure. He couldn’t stand the effect John had on him, even while shaking like a leaf.

Roger couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this close face to face with John. He had such bright eyes, something he hadn’t let himself notice in a long time. His hair was frizzy but he knew it to be soft, he wondered how his fingers would feel going through it. Wondered how his cheek would feel under his thumb’s caress. Wondered how John’s body would feel pressed to his own. How his back would feel as it flexed under Roger’s touch, how his tongue would feel in Roger’s mouth, how his hands would feel clawing up Roger’s shoulders as he rocked into him deep and slow—

“There you are, Deaky,” said Brian. Roger jumped and hurried to tend to the kettle that had started to bubble over. John nearly tripped over himself putting distance between the two of them. “Can you help me with the bass line for 39, without Roger’s drums to go off of I don’t really know what I want.”

“Yes,” squeaked John, “I’ll be right there.”

“Perfect, thank you,” said Brian, leaving just as soon as he’d come.

Silence filled the room for a moment as they caught their breaths. Roger switched the hob off and put the kettle on a cold burner, it’d be much too hot for tea just then but he poured it in his soup bowl anyway and shoved the teabag in after it.

“Roger,” breathed John.

“Go,” said Roger without looking up from his tea.

“Rog—”

“Go,” spat Roger, bold enough then to look John in the eye. John held his breath for a moment, waiting for Roger to give in. Roger held his breath too, wondering if he would give in. “No—I mean it, go.”

John drummed his fingers on the counter, he looked as if he might speak, might protest, but didn’t. He took a shaking breath in and left without another word.

Roger watched him go, almost unsure he would, and then turned back to watch his teabag steep in his soup bowl of hot water. His eyes focused on it, his mind miles away, his mind still reeling from where his imagination had got him to. His stomach turned thinking of what he might’ve done had Brian not snapped him out of it. He rubbed his eyes roughly, seeing stars amid the blackness, as he pressed his hips against the cold wood of the cupboard for some relief.

He slammed his palms flat on the counter as he willed away the erection he refused to deal with. There was too much to deal with, too much to think about if he had to go wank over John in a bathroom. The weight of it would get too heavy, too unbearably heavy. So he forced the thoughts from his head, burned his tongue and throat on his tea, and hurried back into the studio.


	4. A Night At The Opera II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! So here's the next chapter, the one following this is where it all really heats up but I hope you like this one as well! Thank you so much for the lovely comments, I've been running around so much, I haven't had time to respond but know that I love getting them, they motivate me so much! Hope you enjoy <33

**A Night At The Opera II**

It was a blur after Bohemian Rhapsody went number one. It meant a lot in the future, it meant payment they hadn’t ever seen, it meant a tour, a real headlining tour. Most importantly it meant another album, and another one after that, and another one after that. A career, a sustainable career. No more skipping meals, no more sleeping in the cold, no more buying second hand stage clothes and selling them once they were threadbare.

But that would all have to wait, because their first order of business was the celebration. Roger suggested using their advance on their next album to go as big as they could, Freddie agreed, and Brian managed to talk them down to a house party fueled by Reid. In a house bigger than they’d ever seen, with people they didn’t know, women they’d like to know, and plenty of booze, plenty of coke, plenty of loud music.

“We’re gonna be so fucking rich,” said Roger, in a bit of a daze as the whiskey settled in with the coke.

“Were we not rich before?” laughed Brian.

“Who,” Freddie interrupted his own sentence to finish off the line he’d overzealously cut himself, “who are these people?”

Roger ran his finger over the residue on the tray Freddie had and spread it across his gums. Freddie smacked the hand from his mouth. “You look like a crackhead.”

“I know Reid,” said John, pointing across the room with his drink in his hand. “And that’s it.”

“I know Chrissie,” said Roger, pointing with his drink in his hand to Chrissie, at Brian’s side. “And that’s it.”

“Why couldn’t Veronica come?” said Chrissie with a laugh as she watched Roger try to behave as if he wasn’t off his head.

“Robert,” said John, having to scream over the music for Chrissie to hear him. The conversation between them devolved from there, talking about their children, Brian joining in and all three comparing notes while Roger and Freddie looked on in horror.

“Boys! And girl!” said Freddie. “Tonight no one has children, no one has anything thats not in this room, have _fun!_ ”

“I’m okay right here Fred,” said Brian.

“But Deaky’s not,” said Roger. He grabbed his wrist and tugged up and to his feet. Freddie jumped up with them and headed into the din of dancing bodies. He struggled through the crowd, John was giving him unheard words of protest that got lost instantly under the booming bass of the speakers.

Roger stopped when he felt close enough to the speakers, and turned to see John, wrist still in his grip, taking a few clumsy steps to catch up with him. Roger grinned wide and once John met his eyes he did the same.

“Alright Deaky, if you want your cut of the album you’ve gotta dance,” said Roger in his ear, screaming over the music still. John laughed in his ear in response and took a big swallow of his drink.

Roger wasn’t one for dancing, he’d never been very good at it when he didn’t have someone else pressed against him. John didn’t have that talent either, but John didn’t give a shit. He danced with the confidence of a man with talent and Roger was right next to him, drunkenly mimicking the moves he made, hoping to get a laugh from John. Which he did, multiple times. He’d look up and see Roger making a fool of himself and howl with laughter as he did the same.

“Roger!”

Roger paused his mindless gyrating and flailing to try and focus on whoever was calling him.

“Roger!” said a woman on his left, her hand snaked across his shoulders as she looked up at him through dark lashes, “congratulations on the album.”

“Oh,” said Roger as he leaned into her, “thank you.”

She told him her name, though even if he had been able to hear it he wouldn’t have remembered it. She held his arm, called him handsome, and dragged her lips across his neck. After months at the farm a little attention wasn’t something Roger was necessarily eager to shut down. He kissed her, and let her tug and pull at his shirt, his collar, let her make an obscene show on the dance floor, too coked out and drunk to really care, everyone around him in a similar state.

“They’ve got spare bedrooms upstairs,” said the woman as quiet as she could in his ear.

“Oh,” said Roger, finding it odd how little he wanted to follow her up, “okay let me…” his words trailed off as the phrase ‘check on John’ tried to escape. The woman didn’t notice and kept her hand in his pocket as Roger looked around. He expected John to be at his side still, dancing like a fool and waiting for him to return the favour. But he wasn’t even on the dance floor from what Roger could tell. “I’ve gotta go, I’ll meet you up there.”

“I’ll be waiting,” said the woman in as sexy a voice as she could muster given the fact that she had to yell. Roger gave her a fake smile as she sauntered away and set about scouring the place for John.

He picked up a drink and pounded it back as he meandered around the unfamiliar faces. He was never one to hold back at parties and he never really cared to, but in that moment he sincerely wished he were more sober, more able to spot John in the crowds of strangers. He wasn’t sure why he needed to talk to John but he wracked with guilt. They weren’t accountable to each other, they weren’t under any sort of agreement any sort of _relationship_ , but Roger felt like he’d done something horrible in letting that woman kiss him and the more he wandered around the party the worse the feeling got. He eventually took a seat on a loveseat against the wall of some hallway, mostly devoid of people.

Roger leaned forward onto his thighs, his breathing coming a bit faster, a bit harder thanks to all the shit he’d thrown at his system so far. He hoped no one passing through the dead end hall would recognise him, would try to speak to him. He wanted a moment of peace from all of those people, his heart was pounding and he wanted someone to come slow it down, tell him everything was fine.

“You alright?” John’s feet appeared between Roger’s.

Roger looked up, never more glad to see anyone than he was to see John in that moment. “Oh good.”

“What’re you doing?” said John with a laugh.

“I was looking all over for you, where the fuck’ve you been?” said Roger.

John shrugged. “Laying low for a bit, Freddie told me you were on the hunt though, figured I should find you before you hurt yourself.”

“You drunk?” said Roger. John nodded. “So’m I.”

“I noticed,” said John. “You look like death sitting here.”

“I,” began Roger, his eyes drifting to the other party goers. All lost in their own conversations, all focused on each other, not caring an ounce about what Roger might have to say and yet he felt exposed, on display even.

“Want to go somewhere quieter?” said John.

“I would love that,” said Roger. He stood and stumbled when he did, and John stumbled when he reached to catch him. Neither quite in their right mind, but neither as far gone as they wanted the other to believe. John opened the first door he saw and hurried inside, Roger tailing behind him. “Very thick in here,” said Roger as he struggled into the cramped room, “and dark.”

“I think it’s a coat closet Rog,” said John as he fell against the back wall. Roger, half laughing, half anxious, shoved the coats down the rod, squishing them against the wall for a bit of space before he reached up and felt the light bulb, felt down to its stem, then down its chain and tugged. The light that came from the dim bulb wasn’t much but it was enough to see John’s smiling face as he leant all of his body weight against the minks behind him.

“Comfy?” said Roger. John just grinned and nodded.

“Won’t that girl,” John stood up a bit straighter, thought the coats were still holding up a decent amount of his weight, “won’t that girl miss you?”

“I don’t care, I don’t want _her_ ,” said Roger.

"Who _do_ you want then, Rog?" said John, his voice barely a whisper.

There was a lot he wanted to say, a lot he wasn’t ready to say, a lot he didn’t understand, a lot he didn’t want to try to understand. But he was drunk, that was a good enough excuse for anything. A couple drinks and his actions were no longer his own, he could do whatever he wanted and feel no guilt, no shame about them in the morning because they were just whiskey-driven. So he cupped John’s face and pulled him into a bruising kiss. John moaned into his mouth and grabbed hold of his belt loops, pulling his hips in closer, leaning further back on the coats and dragging Roger with him.

John’s tongue felt so at home next to his own, it felt so complete, so natural, so perfect. He wanted to believe that was the cocaine talking but he knew it wasn’t, he knew it was just John. Roger grabbed his hips and sighed when he could feel John’s cock against his own through the thick layers of trousers. He pressed himself against John a bit firmer, desperate for a bit of relief. Roger felt John’s hands reach between them, felt them unbuckle his belt.

“What’re you doing?” breathed Roger, pulling away to look at John’s softly lit face.

“I don’t wanna think,” replied John, his eyes locked on Roger’s as he unzipped his trousers and slid his hand down to Roger’s cock. The waistband on Roger’s pants stretched to accommodate John’s hand as he stroked him, slow and heavy for a moment.

“Please,” sighed Roger, his hand gripped John’s waist tight, and gripped the mink coat they were pressed against tighter still.

John, in one smooth movement, freed Roger’s cocked and stroked him in earnest. Roger moaned, deep and guttural before smashing his lips against John’s again, desperate and cloying. His hips bucked into John’s hand his hands tore at him, his tongue worked inside him in every way he knew how, he just wanted more of him. John was pliant in his hands, eagerly taking everything Roger would give him and working his cock in such an expert way that Roger knew he wouldn’t last much longer.

“I’m gonna come,” groaned Roger in John’s ear, his lips lazily dragged down his neck as he panted and dug his nails into John. He didn’t care what he stained, didn’t care about John’s clothes, didn’t care about the noises he made when it happened he just enjoyed the high as John stroked him through it. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” repeated John. Roger leant back against the opposite coats and caught his breath, wincing at the oversensitivity as he righted his clothes. John eyed him and raised his hand to his lips, at first he closed and separated his fingers a few times, almost admiring the mess on them. Once he’d seen enough he shoved two fingers into his mouth and gave Roger a view of how well his tongue cleaned them off.

Roger practically whined and lunged at John again, he didn’t care if he could taste himself in John’s mouth, he wanted it all. In Roger’s arms, in his grip, John pressed his clothed erection against Roger’s thigh and moved just a bit, just enough to hint to Roger that he wanted the same relief, the same release. Roger couldn’t oblige fast enough. His hands shook as they worked his belt open.

“Fuck,” whispered John as he watched Roger get a handful of his cock, “fuck, hurry up.”

Roger sucked dark marks into his neck, bit and teased any skin he could, anything to elicit moans and whimpers from John, anything to make him buck up into his hand.

“God,” muttered Roger against John’s skin, “I wanna swallow it.”

“Fuck,” cried John, more desperate as he got closer, as Roger got him closer.

If he stopped to think he wouldn’t know why he was doing what he was doing. He’d had slippery moments with John, moments that mad him question a lot of things but there was an amount of confidence in himself that came after those moments had passed that made him sure they were flukes. But the flukes were so powerful, the mere thought of them were distressing and arousing to the point of madness. And so on some level he was shocked that he was sinking to his knees in a coat closet with John, but on a much more real plane, he wasn’t at all surprised.

Roger was glad he wasn’t sober, he wasn’t sure he’d do it very well if he weren’t. He swirled his tongue around the head of John’s cock and felt John’s thigh shake in his hand, his other hand focused on stroking him. He’d only just gotten used to the weight, heat, and size of John in his mouth when he came. Roger, his sense a bit dulled, swallowed with ease.

“Oh fuck,” panted John, he ran a hand through Roger’s hair, “oh fuck.” He leaned back into the coats, all thick enough to hold him up sturdily.

Roger sat up a bit and pressed a tentative kiss to John’s hip, a kiss that quickly turned to a teasing bite that made John laugh and shiver under him. Roger moved up a few inches, rucking his shirt up and running his tongue over the soft skin of John’s stomach. His hands reached across his back and pulled him in closer. Eager to get every ounce of John that he could.

“Roger,” said John, a playful lilt to his voice, “Roger, stand up.”

“Mm,” hummed Roger against John’s skin. With one last kiss, one last bite, he let John heave him to his feet. John righted his clothes as their minds began to clear a bit, as the weight began to settle in.

But Roger didn’t care. John looked at him so tenderly, so full of genuine attraction, devotion even, that Roger could put away the repercussions for a later date and kiss John right there and then.

“Can you taste it?” muttered Roger against his lips. “I could taste it on you.”

“I can,” said John. “I love it.”

“John,” sighed Roger, putting most of his weight on John, really pressing him into the coats, “I wanna fuck you.”

“In the closet?” squeaked John in reply, though his hand twisted desperately in the back of Roger’s shirt. His eyes wide and virginal in a way that Roger couldn’t get enough of. He buried his face in John’s neck again, adding to the raw bruises he’d already left.

“I wish I fucked you at the farm,” breathed Roger, the words felt so foreign to him. They were true, but he didn’t know that until he’d said them.

“Why didn’t you?” John pulled away, his words less aroused and more curious now. He pulled, wanting to see Roger’s eyes.

Roger shrugged but they both knew why. Roger didn’t want to think about what it would mean to sleep with John. Sober, totally uninhibited, totally of his own free will. It wasn’t something he liked about himself, wasn’t something he was excited to indulge, it was something he felt the need to starve, to ignore, to try and kill but no matter how much work he put in, John nourished that part of him so effortlessly there was no way to avoid how bad Roger wanted to feel that forever.

“I’m drunk,” said Roger, his words getting too intense for his own liking.

“I am too,” said John, one hand moved up to Roger’s neck and scratched lightly. A loving touch that Roger wasn’t used to.

“We should go,” said Roger.

“I don’t want to,” replied John. If he were honest with himself, Roger didn’t want to leave either. He wanted to stay in the suspended reality of that little closet with John where none of it mattered. Nothing about Roger or his identity changed, nothing about the dynamics of their friendship changed, the band didn’t change, the way people looked at him didn’t change, they could just be alone, be with each other, and not worry. But the longer he stayed the harder it would be to leave, to face John in the morning.

“But we should,” said Roger. He reached up for the pull-chain on the lightbulb and the closet was pitch black once again. In the darkness, Roger searched for John, his lips meeting his cheek before carefully moving down to his lips. And just as soon as it’d started it ended. Roger, with no real warning, opened the closet door and burst out of the coats.

And he didn’t look back as he meandered through the halls out to the front and got a car home. Once he was in the safety of his own tiny, shitty, apartment he tossed bits of his clothing off as he made his way to his bed and slid into the sheets as soon as he could. Not wanting to have a moment alone with his thoughts.

~~~

Roger woke to the horrible sound of his phone ringing on his desk in his tiny apartment. He was hungover and that became immediately apparent when he sat up and his skull tried to split clear in half. He scurried off his bed, hoping to catch whoever’d caleld him before they gave up.

“Hello,” said Roger before he’d put the receiver to his hear.

“Morning, darling,” said Freddie on the other end. “We’re all going to lunch, get dressed.”

“But it’s so early.”

“It’s almost 2, Roger, get up. John’s picking you up on his way,” said Freddie.

“Oh he is?” said Roger, suddenly more awake.

“He knew you’d be all grumpy and hungover and horrible so he offered to drag you by your heels,” said Freddie.

“Did he.” Roger stretched his back and sighed.

“He did. Poor thing’s hungover himself so be thankful. Hell, _I’m_ hungover,” laughed Freddie.

“Then why are we going to lunch,” whined Roger.

“Because,” said Freddie, sounding a bit sad, “the band’s—we’re taking off, I want us to have a lunch just us four and, really, you know, really—”

“I know, I know, Fred,” said Roger gently. More than anyone else, Freddie thought of the band as a family and Roger hated to break that illusion for him in any way. “Okay, I will be there with bells on. Swear.”

“Can’t wait, deary.”

After he hung up with Freddie he lazily pulled on clothes. As he was brushing his teeth, as he was fiddling with his hair, scrubbing the tiredness out of his face with cold water he was thinking of the night before. It’d gotten blurrier as Roger sobered up but he swore he could recall every detail. Every sound, every feeling, every word said between them, every taste shared. And if he was honest with himself, he didn’t know what to say to him. He wasn’t sure if he should mention it or say nothing. He didn’t even know which he would’ve preferred.

Saying something meant clearing the air, making some sense of it. But saying nothing was so much safer. If he said nothing he didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to acknowledge anything he’d done as of his own volition. No if he just stayed quiet it could just disappear.

Roger had just tugged new trousers on when a car honked outside. He peered out his window and spotted John’s car in the street. Roger hurried down his steps and out to the street. The whole walk over he was preoccupied with passersby, with other cars, with the trees even, anything at all to avoid looking at John behind the steering wheel.

“Morning,” muttered Roger as he slid into the passenger seat, his eyes glued to stretch of road ahead of them as John pulled off the curb.

“How hungover are you?” said John with a little chuckle behind his words.

“Not too bad,” replied Roger with a reflexive smile, his eyes still on the road. “You?”

“I’ve had worse,” said John with a shrug.

Roger could already hear his own heartbeat. The radio wasn’t loud enough, Roger had no idea what was playing but it needed to be louder. It needed to drown out the deafening, ear-piercing silence that hovered between them. He wondered, though, if turning the radio up would some how make it worse, would convey just how anxious he was and make John more anxious and make the whole situation that much further from just being forgotten.

“Are you not gonna say anything?” said John, he turned to Roger when they hit a red light.

“Hm?” said Roger, awkwardly turning to face him, if only briefly.

“You don’t have to,” said John as the light changed.

The silence began again, Roger once again tempted to turn the radio up, to drown out their thoughts with some shitty pop music. He glance out of the corner of his eyes to John, he was stoic and focused on the road. Roger had a lot of half formed questions in his mind, a lot of them dying to come out.

“Turtleneck?” said Roger a bit too loudly, eager to break the silence but terrified of where it could lead.

“Wha—oh,” said John, his cheeks turning red as he rubbed the fabric around his neck, “I didn’t want…want anyone to see.”

“Oh fuck,” groaned Roger, remembering how merciless he’d been with the hickies. “I’m sorry I was—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” interrupted John. “They’ll fade and Ronnie hasn’t noticed, yet.”

“Shit—I didn’t mean to—” began Roger again, hoping to get an apology out.

“It’s okay,” interrupted John again. “I promise.”

The silence came again. More obvious this time seeing as the car was stopped at a light, the engine was quiet, the radio was quiet, the road was quiet. Almost no ambient noise to really fill out the inside of their car.

“Roger I just have to know what…what it meant for you,” said John. “I don’t care what you say, I just can’t pretend this never happened without some kind of…”

“I know,” said Roger. “I…” part of him wanted to tell John all his doubts and fears about what they’d done and how much more he wanted to do, but now wasn’t the time, he wasn’t sure there would ever be a time for that, “I don’t know what that was about. I got carried away.”

“So did I,” John turned to him, “two-way street here, Rog.”

“I…” began Roger, preparing for the lie he was still hoping would one day be the truth, “I don’t—I’m not like that. I’m not like you. It was just a mistake. I’m sorry.”

Roger wasn’t sure if John believed him. After last night, Roger was finding it nearly impossible to believe himself. But he didn’t say anything more, just nodded and muttered ‘okay’ before turning the radio up just a bit. The music on it was total shit but neither cared enough to change it, neither really listening to it in the first place.

“Is it gonna be strange between us now?” said Roger. It was unfair of him to ask that. John had his own feelings about the situation he couldn’t already begin to lament that John was reacting strangely.

“No,” said John with a grin and an eye roll, “nothing’s changed, not really. We’ve just…tasted each other’s come.”

Roger felt himself blushing as he laughed. With his elbow propped up on the car door, he put his head in his hand. John laughed with him.

“I will say, before we put this whole thing to rest, you’re a fantastic kisser,” said John. Roger could see his face turn a darker shade of red once he’d said that.

“So are you,” replied Roger quickly.

“Not so much at sucking cock though,” laughed John.

“Hey!” said Roger behind an awkward laugh, unsure he liked how candid they were being but entirely sure he wouldn’t be the one to shut it down. “I was coked out and drunk. You’re lucky I got it in my mouth.”

“I still came didn’t I?” said John as he turned into the carpark.

“Yeah, _instantly_ ,” teased Roger.

“I’d lasted long enough,” groaned John.

“I thought ‘Misfire’ was a _joke_ ,” said Roger. John hid a smile and groaned over dramatically, knowing it wasn’t a discussion he would win if he tried to defend himself.

He pulled into a parking spot and threw his car into park before yanking the keys out and staring directly ahead at the hedge his front bumper was resting against.

“So we’re fine?” said John.

“I am if you are,” replied Roger.

“Okay,” said John, a strange sadness in his eyes, “then let’s go inside.”

They walked into the diner side by side and met Brian at a booth, Freddie would be late as he always was but they could still warm up with coffee.

Roger was in and out of the conversation, contributing but not really invested not really focused on anything being said. His thoughts were far away and inconsistent. He wanted to clear his head of John. They’d had a weird night, it was over and most importantly it was meaningless. But his thigh would press to John’s, or John’s to his, his hand would nearly brush against his and Roger’s focus on forgetting it was lost all over again.

But it would fade, it was raw from the night before but it would fade. It always did. It always did.


	5. A Day At The Races I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So this is a long one its about 8.5k, sorry about that! Really don't know how it got to be that length but oh well! I hope you enjoy it! Next chapter's coming soon! Please comment if you do enjoy this one <33

**A Day At The Races I**

Roger swore he’d burst a head as he played. The crowd was roaring while Freddie put on a show in front of Roger’s drum risers. Roger was grinning, singing along, sometimes into the microphone, and sweating up a storm as he played. He loved nothing more than live shows, live proof that their music moved people in a way nothing else could. But all that enjoyment was sucked straight out of him when he hit his bass drum and felt a lack of tension. As if the head were wearing thin, ready to tear. He knew the heads had all been replaced, knew the chance of one breaking a few shows in was slim to none but he also knew his beater wasn’t returning as it should, it was less like bouncing off of taught plastic and more like bouncing off of a feather-stuffed cushion.

He didn’t know if it was very lucky or very unlucky that he’d only been able to feel the slackening head on their third to last song. If the head wasn’t going to tear, then he only had three songs left to run it through. If it was going to tear he’d have no stage time to replace it, no way to entertain the crowd properly right before the finale. He didn’t miss a beat as his mind gave him flashes of the night ending with a horrible hurried drum-head replacement while Freddie tried to keep the audience’s energy up.

Forcing the pedal to return at the speed he needed with a drum head that was ready to give out took all of his energy. And where normally he was singing along and doing intense fills and riffs on his drums to finish the night off, he was instead focusing very hard on hitting his bass notes on beat and working out a way to speed up the beater for the impending sixteenth notes that he already knew he’d have to downgrade to eighths.

To get his pedal going as fast as he needed, he had to hit a bit harder. He could already hear the papery crinkling of a tearing bass head. He’d broken two bass heads his entire life, the odds of him bursting one on stage were so astronomical that Roger figured it was God playing a joke on him.

With their second to last song almost done, Roger started holding his breath, hoping beyond hope that the head would last for just four or five more minutes as they wrapped everything up.

John danced across the stage, in the jerky uncoordinated way he always did, and hopped up on the drum risers. Normally he’d smile, wave, make a face that the audience couldn’t see, but when he looked at Roger his expression was full of concern.

“You alright?” he mouthed, not wanting to be picked up by the mics. Roger just shook his head.

John made a face, a sort of ‘what do you want me to do’ face. It wasn’t dire, the show didn’t need to be stopped, but there was no way to tell John that. So he shook his head again and was glad when John understood and climbed off the risers.

As predicted, the bass head burst on the final cymbal roll of their finale. Roger had no way to cover it up, his foot still instinctively hitting the broken head hoping for some sound to come from the torn plastic. But nothing did. The audience didn’t cheer any less, likely hadn’t even noticed it with Freddie and the guitar roaring, but Roger noticed it.

He was quick to get off stage, quick to anger. He was barely in their dressing room when his fuse reached it’s limit.

“I’m sorry, Rog—” began one of the roadies.

“Sorry?!” spat Roger. “Sorry?! You’re fucking sorry?! What if that had burst in the middle of the show, in the middle of one of the fucking songs?!”

“Go easy,” said Brian.

“Oh fuck off!” screamed Roger. “A string pops on your guitar you’ve got another one just like it waiting in the wings, you know what fucking happens if my fucking _bass drum_ is out of commission?! Fucking idiot! You should all be as mad as I am, that could’ve fucking ruined the fucking show!”

“But it didn’t,” said Freddie in a soothing voice.

Roger didn’t want to be soothed, he wanted to be vindicated. He turned his attention back to the roadie. He was much taller than Roger, much more masculine and muscular, and Roger knew in any other scenario he’d get the shit kicked out of him.

“Tell me how a brand new fucking head bursts after an hour and a half of playing and a soundcheck?!”

“Something must’ve bruised it in transit—” began the roadie.

“It’s _your fucking job_ to make sure that doesn’t fucking happen! It’s your fucking _job!_ It’s also your fucking job to check the fucking kit before I get on stage!”

“I’m sorry—”

“Fuck ‘sorry’, you’re _fired!”_ screamed Roger.

“No—No! No you’re not!” interjected Freddie. He hopped up on his aching feet and danced his way between Roger and the roadie. He put a hand on Roger’s shoulder, and his heel on Roger’s toes. “Go get Crystal, you’re not fired, just go get Crystal.”

The roadie hurried out of the dressing room. The rest of the road crew in there, their makeup artists, their costumers, their handlers, were all silent as they listened to the poor man scurry down the hall.

“I’m not in the wrong here—” began Roger.

“It was a mistake,” said Freddie. “A bad one, I will give you that—”

“I was working my fucking arse off trying to keep that head from breaking while you three danced around _as per usual!_ I’m allowed to get fucking angry when something like this happens!”

“You can’t go around firing people when there’s a technical malfunction,” said Paul from across the room, a smug smirk across his face.

“Shut the fuck up, Paul,” spat John.

“I’m right,” Paul, laughing a bit, “he’s throwing a tantrum.”

“Shut the fuck up!” screamed John. Paul looked at John with disbelief on his face, John looked back with no emotion. Neither would do anything, neither would start an actual fight, for Freddie’s sake, but it was clear that was the only thing stopping them.

“God—what’s gotten into everybody tonight,” sighed Freddie as he looked around the room. “So tense. The show went just fine—”

 _“Thanks to Roger!”_ interrupted John. He didn’t like, and very rarely engaged in the fighting between the four of them, but he held Freddie’s gaze with an intense confidence. “A bass head replacement—tuning, it would’ve taken long enough for the crowd to lose interest. There was only so much I could do with my bass to cover the missing low-end when he had to slow down, Fred—he’s right it would’ve been a fucking mess. And you didn’t see him when it started to go, he looked like he was about to have a fucking heart attack—I almost stopped the song. In fact I would’ve had it not been the end of the show. He’s not throwing a fucking tantrum,” John looked at Paul pointedly.

“That doesn’t mean he can fire our roadies,” said Brian.

“If the neck on your guitar fell clean off with no replacement ready, you’d be pissed off, and you wouldn’t want to hear the three of us tell you it turned out fine,” said John. He crossed his arms over his chest and sank further into the seat he’d occupied.

“Okay,” said Freddie. He was silent for another moment, then put his other hand on Roger’s opposite shoulder. “Thank you for holding the show together. Crystal will get it sorted, he always does, this is the first and only time it’ll happen.” He turned to everyone in the room, his eyes moving between them rapidly, suspiciously, “no more bickering.”

The room was quiet, no one wanting to speak and break the silence. What finally did it was the door opening and Crystal flying in, a smile wide on his face until he read the room and felt the heavy tension between them all, at which point his big personality shrank just a bit. “Er, can I borrow Rog?”

No one responded but Roger hurried out with him and slammed the door shut on his way.

“Roger, I’m so sorry—”

“It’s fine,” said Roger, the anger having passed almost as soon as John had sided with him.

“I heard you tried to fire someone?” said Crystal.

Roger rubbed his temple. “I was mad, but he’s not fired. I’m sorry, I know this wasn’t negligence or anything, it was just a very stressful ten odd minutes up there.”

“Well we figured out the problem,” said Crystal. “We replaced the beater yesterday, it had an edge I didn’t catch. Fairly blunt but after an hour long show, a sound check, its going to burst the head. So…it was negligence.”

Roger waved his hand. “I wouldn’t have caught it either.”

“Yes you would’ve,” laughed Crystal. Roger laughed too, he knew he would’ve.

“Either way, the show is over, throw that beater out, don’t even try to file it down.”

Crystal gave him a handful of ‘thank you’s and a handful of apologies before heading back to pack the stage up. Roger meandered back down the hall to the dressing room which had a bit more life to it by then. Freddie had forced them all into a friendly conversation. There were laughs and smiles when he returned and a lot of talk about heading out to the bars afterwards.

~~~

Maybe it was the residual anxiety from having so _barely_ made it through the show, but Roger wasn’t having much fun at the club they found afterwards. He had his whiskey but the women were bothersome in their compliments and everyone else was just too loud, too pandering, too cloying in their attempts to get his attention. There were nights, though they were rare, that he hated being famous in any capacity. He hated having any woman he wanted, any friendship he wanted, anyone’s attention that he wanted. It was so surface level and unfulfilling in a way that weighed on Roger too heavily for him to enjoy the company in club.

“You look like death,” said Brian over the music. “Lighten up a little.”

“Sorry,” said Roger, “I think I may be coming down with something.”

“Just our luck,” laughed Brian as he finished off his drink. “Head back if you’re not well. God knows you complain enough when you’re well, we can’t risk you getting sick.”

“Piss off,” said Roger with the beginnings of a smile on his face. “You’re probably right though, I should head back.”

“Tell Paul, or, someone with more authority than me,” said Brian, his eyes a little unfocused from the booze.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Roger as he set his empty whiskey glass down and sidled away from Brian through the crowd, zero intention of telling anyone other than the driver where he was going.

As he meandered through the gyrating bodies, he got a lot of looks, a few offers, and a few pleas to stay longer, but he ignored them all with a laugh and some great acting as he pretended he couldn’t hear a single word over the loud music. He was nearly to the door, when a hand grabbed his and tugged. He whirled around with his best drunken expression, prepared to tell another desperate woman he wasn’t up for it at the moment, when he came face to face with John.

“You leaving?” he said.

“Er,” Roger wicked his hand away from John’s, “yeah, I’m not feeling myself.”

Roger took a step towards the door and John took a step too. “Neither am I. Got to call Ronnie anyway. Do you mind company on the ride home?”

“Course not,” said Roger. He liked the slivers of alone time he got with John. The nights spent working on the rhythm, the days spent playing with his son or exploring strange parts of the towns they played in. Even in his off mood he wasn’t going to turn down a chance to get up to no good with John.

Roger’s ears were ringing the entire drive to the hotel but once they stepped into the lobby it had passed, thankfully. They had people with them, a guard, a road manager’s assistant, people around them making sure they got from point A to point B without getting mugged or mobbed but once they were on their hotel floor, rented out entire for them and their crew, they were left alone.

“Well,” said Roger, as he turned the key in his lock, “this one’s mine.”

“Mine’s eh,” John pointed down the hallway a bit. “But I want to see yours.”

“Oh?” said Roger with a raised eyebrow. “How naughty.”

John rolled his eyes and pushed past him and into Roger’s suite. He did a lap, looking at the bar, the bathroom, the lounge, the bed, the view before finally turning back around to Roger with a look of disbelief.

“Your’s is huge,” said John.

“Thank you,” said Roger, unsure of what else to say.

“You’re such a cheat, you do vocals for some songs and you get the room of a vocalist. I’m still living in squalour in the room of a bassist,” said John. He plopped onto the couch in a huff.

“Oh Deaky,” sighed Roger as his fingers danced around the bottles on the bar. “What’ll it be?”

“Dealer’s choice,” said John. “I’ll call Ronnie before another one, she doesn’t like when my words slur.”

“Help yourself to any phone you like,” said Roger. John sat on Roger’s bed and dialed home. Roger drowned out his words with each clink of the glasses and bottles as he assembled their drinks. He had such a lavish bar he felt like and underachiever if he just poured whiskey in two glasses. So he found the enormous cubes of ice left for him in the freezer and worked on getting a twist of orange peel in each drink. He meandered to the couch just as he heard John saying his goodnights and goodbyes over the phone.

“Well well,” said John as he took the glass Roger handed him, “you’re quite the bartender.”

Roger sat with a huff, “why thank you. This whole drummer thing is just to fund my bartending passion.”

John snorted and sat down with him, sinking deep into the couch as he took the first sip of his ‘drink’ which was just whisky on the rocks with a fancy, orange peel infused, toothpick sticking out of it.

“Hey uh,” Roger coughed before silence really settled in between them. “Thank you for saying all that after the show.” His kept his eyes on his glass, his fingers drumming the side as he spoke. “I know I was being a prick.”

“You were,” said John. “But you meant well.”

“You always find the good in me, Deaky,” said Roger.

“Not hard to do,” replied John.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a bit as they worked on their drinks. Each sank a little further into the cushions. Roger wondered if he should put the telly on, if he should put the radio on, if he should tell some grand interesting story, propose some ridiculous scheme, offer up some stupid game for them to play. But he knew he didn’t have to, knew that with John he could just sit in silence and that was more than enough. He didn’t have to entertain or even talk, he could just sit. As he took another sip of his whiskey he wondered if he could thank John for that, for wanting him around even when his mood was off. It felt too silly to attempt but he hoped John felt it anyway.

“No woman tonight huh?” said John, breaking the silence with words that seemed to echo around the room. “Unusual for you isn’t it?”

Roger shrugged. “Wasn’t in the mood.”

“Still not done beating yourself up for the drumhead?” said John. He turned his head, lazily, to meet Roger’s eyes, a grin painted on his face. Roger couldn’t help but grin with him.

“I’m not beating myself up, I just…” Roger breathed, deep and shaky as he stared into John’s piercing eyes, “sort of shook me I guess. I really had no backup.”

“You had me,” said John. “I filled in some of the low for you, when I could.”

“I noticed,” said Roger, the smile on his face got a bit wider, so did John’s. Roger loved when John smiled wide like that, when his eyes crinkled up just so. He looked so…so— “Anyway how’s Ronnie?” said Roger, hoping to interrupt his own thoughts.

“Good,” said John, he stretched an arm across the back of the couch, “Robert’s giving her hell, but otherwise, she’s good.”

“I love that kid,” said Roger, more to himself than to John.

“Don’t tell the others but you’re his favourite,” said John.

“How’d you know that?” said Roger, willing to believe anything John said in that moment if it meant he was little baby Robert’s favourite uncle. “He’s,” Roger did the math in his head as quickly as he could, “God he’s nearly a year old, that’s hard to believe.”

“Seems like only yesterday Freddie was dragging me out of my house by the ankles to go up to Ridge Farm a month after he’d been born,” said John with some bitterness.

“You had fun though, didn’t you,” said Roger. Unsure of what he was doing with that suggestive comment, unsure what he wanted in that moment.

“I tried,” said John, his eyes on the orange peel, admiring it with a false intensity.

“S-so,” began Roger, his voice uneven, “so I’m his favourite?”

“He lights up for you,” said John. “He does with Freddie too ‘cause he’s so,” John gestured wildly and vaguely to try and capture the essence of Freddie, “but he just likes the look of you. Maybe because you’re eyes are so big.”

“Hm?” said Roger. “Big eyes?”

“You know, your eyes are so big and your face is so…” John stared at him, almost at a loss for words. “It’s very soft, easy on the eyes, quite literally.”

“Are you trying to say I’m pretty?” said Roger with a laugh, half joking, half curious.

“I wasn’t,” laughed John, his eyes briefly averting from Roger’s to fiddle with his drink before quickly and confidently returning, “but you are.”

“You think?” breathed Roger.

“Of course I think so,” said John with a smile. “You’re gorgeous. It’s more fact than opinion at this point.”

Roger could feel his cheeks heating up. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Well, thanks,” said John flatly, clearly not believing an ounce of what Roger said.

“I mean it,” insisted Roger. John looked to him, Roger stared back, a blank face and red cheeks, full of sincerity. John grinned and took a deep breath out as he turned his attention back to the intricate crystal of his whiskey glass.

“How uh,” John took another swig of his drink, “how’d’you do these orange things?”

He took the orange peel off the tooth pick and began trying to pin it back into it’s original intricate spiral. Roger laughed at his attempt and scooted down the couch to sit next to him, maybe closer than he needed to be but that could all be forgiven in the name of teaching.

“Let me show you,” said Roger as he covered John’s hands with his own. It wasn’t a particularly difficult process, Roger knew that. Knew that John didn’t give a shit about a spiraled orange peel. But it got them closer and that was all Roger really focused on. The pressure of John’s thigh pressed to his, the way his fingers chased after Roger’s around the orange peel, the way his shoulder leant against Roger’s. “See? Easy.”

Roger presented John with the painstakingly made orange spiral. John muttered a thanks and let it hang out of his drink where it’d been before. Roger took another sip of his drink, and John did the same, and they both leaned back into the cushions, side by side, pressed tightly to each other. John turned to look at him. Roger, when he felt John’s eyes on him, turned to meet his gaze.

“Roger,” said John. His voice monotone and heavy.

“Yes?” said Roger, his voice barely above a whisper.

John looked like he might kiss him, like he might lean in. Roger wondered if and when he would, when the long lingering look between them would end and the rest of the night would start. Wonder vaguely why he had no intention of stopping that.

But he didn’t lean in, didn’t envelope Roger in a searing kiss. Instead he tried to speak. His words got caught somewhere in his throat every time, only making the faintest of sounds. He almost said a lot, almost said plenty, but with every pause, every sigh, Roger feared they got further from John ever spitting it out. Just when Roger was moments away from prompting him, from ripping the words from him he blurted out, “I think I’m in love with you.”

“Oh, god.” Roger sighed as all the air left his lungs. He sat up in a huff, “don’t say shit like that.”

John sat up beside him and set his drink on the coffee table while Roger chugged the remained of his own and slammed it down next to John’s.

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t think you felt the same way,” said John. Roger looked at him, his expression blank while John tried to read him. “You do feel that way don’t you?”

Roger stared at him, eyes wide. Either answer was too much to think about right in that moment. Yes meant accepting a lot he had hardly begun to confront in himself, but no meant giving it up, every secret thing he wished about John, wished about himself. He couldn’t just say no, couldn’t just give all that away in the moment. He stared at John looking as caught out as he was, and John’s face fell.

John took a shaky breath in and out, keeping his composure. “Sorry, I don’t...know why I thought that you might also—”

Roger couldn’t bear to see him backpedal and apologise but he couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t admit all he felt all he wanted from John. Not out loud, not even to himself. So he shut him up by clumsily leaning over and pressing a sloppy kiss to his lips. He felt John relax into it, accept Roger’s hands on his waist, through his hair, and his tongue in his mouth without question.

“What,” began John, pulling away just enough to get a word in, “what’re you doing?”

“Don’t think so much,” said Roger before desperately smashing their lips together again. And he hoped, he prayed, John would stop thinking and just let the night take them where it ought to.

Roger pressed John against the arm of the couch and ran an exploratory hand down his chest, tugging his shirt out of his waistband and running his fingertips across John’s bare skin. He was hot to the touch, his skin smooth and soft. John reached a blind, fumbling hand up and tugged at the back of Roger’s shirt. The feeling of John’s unsure touch against his back, up to his shoulders, and down to his hips was electric in a way Roger just never felt with anyone else. His mere touch setting him totally alight.

His hand moved down John’s stomach, he ran his nails over the soft skin there before running his hand over John’s clothed cock. His movements were firm and slow and had John sighing deep and shaky against his lips. Roger was worried if he took his tongue out of John’s mouth he’d ask him more question, why he was doing what he was doing, what it all meant. Questions Roger didn’t want to try and answer, so he didn’t let up.

His fingers danced over his belt, unbuckling it with drunken ease before he unbuttoned his trousers and in one quick motion freed John’s hardening cock. Roger stroked him, twisting his wrist, teasing with his thumb, working John’s cock the way he worked his own as John whined and whimpered into his mouth. His left hand clawed at Roger’s shirt a bit tighter, while his right gripped Roger’s knee for dear life.

“Fuck,” said John as he threw his head back, finally breaking away from Roger. He bucked his hips up into Roger’s hand, an unconscious movement that Roger was sure he hadn’t even noticed. “Why’re you so good at that?”

Roger smirked and pressed a light kiss to John’s neck while it was so exposed. John keened up into the touch, his hand fell lazy and limp off of Roger’s back as Roger sucked a deeper mark into his skin. “God you smell so good,” muttered Roger, buried in his neck. That familiar scent of his sweat mixing with his cologne lingered on his skin and had Roger adding mark after mark to John’s porcelain neck.

“I smell like the club,” replied John, his voice uneven with Roger’s ministrations.

“No,” sighed Roger, moving down to John’s collarbones to leave a more easily hidden mark, “you smell like you.” His hand left John’s aching cock rather cruelly. He grabbed John’s thigh and up to his hip, felt every rib up his chest, bit and kissed his way across his shoulders as much as he could with John’s shirt collar still buttoned. He wanted more of John and he couldn’t get it, not like this. “Can I fuck you?” whispered Roger, his lips pressed just under John’s jaw.

“Right now?” said John, his voice higher than Roger ever remembered it being.

Roger pulled himself away from John’s intoxicating skin and sat up enough to look down at him. John’s eyes were wide as saucers, his cheeks red, his lips swollen. Roger knew what that feeling was in the pit of his stomach, blooming in his chest as he stared at John, he knew what it was but fuck if he’d admit to it.

“Right now,” whispered Roger in reply before smashing his lips to John’s in a more needy kiss. John wrapped his arms around Roger’s shoulders and traced his finger tips across his back as a silent alternative to saying yes.

There was so much he wanted from John right then, so much he wanted to give him, and time suddenly felt so slow, he was too far still, too separate from him still. “Bed, bed, I wanna be on the bed,” said Roger sounding a bit crazed.

John just whined in response and followed Roger to the bed. Roger slid onto the mattress and wrestled with his belt while John flopped next to him and kicked his trousers off in a frenzy. Before either of them got very far with undressing themselves, Roger rolled over on to John, he needed him so constantly, so desperately that even that short moment away from him was torture. He kissed him with all the need and intensity he had in him, and tugged at the buttons of his shirt until they either popped open or ripped.

Roger sat up then and hurried to unbutton his own buttons, his fingers shaking with excitement and making his job harder. John sat up too and pulled his arms out of their sleeves and threw his shirt as far as he could.

“God,” breathed Roger, his shirt unbuttoned but his arms not yet free, as he lunged forward and pinned John to the mattress again. He ground his hips against John’s, pressed his clothed erection to John’s free one and hummed. He couldn’t wait, couldn’t wait to be inside him, couldn’t wait to feel him so fully, couldn’t wait to know him like that. “Oh shit,” said Roger, getting lost in his own fantasy with his lips against John’s. “Lube.”

“Get it,” said John as if it were obvious.

“I don’t have any,” sighed Roger.

“Oh shit,” said John. He propped himself up a bit while Roger rolled off of him. “So is…that it then?”

“No,” said Roger firmly. He sat up and stared dead ahead, his mind raced trying to find a solution. He once had condoms sent up on a previous tour but that had put them out apparently and ended with an extra charge on the bill. Everyone saw Roger leave alone he’d never be able to explain a lube charge on their fucking bill. Freddie or Brian might have some but they’d want answers.

“Rog, it’s okay,” John rested a hand on his shoulder, “we can do other…things. Or maybe nothing—maybe this is a sign—”

“It’s not a sign!” interrupted Roger. He hopped of the bed and haphazardly buttoned his shirt, totally misaligning the holes and buttons. “I am going to go find _something_ , stay right here.” Roger tugged on his shoes, stepping on the back of one, and hurried out of the hotel room with his key in hand.

He couldn’t walk through the lobby and out to the shops looking how he did with an erection, there was an amount of dignity he did still have despite what everyone said. So he swallowed his pride and knocked on Freddie’s door. He held his breath waiting for him to open it, to notice his state, to make a few jokes, and to take forever handing over the lube. But the door never opened. Roger knocked again, called his name, and got no reply. He checked his watch, it was only midnight, far too early to come back from the club. He rested his forehead on Freddie’s door, equal parts frustrated and defeated.

His only recourse was to bang on doors until one of them opened. He knew Brian and Freddie’s doors, the rest were random crew, a manager or two he might recognise, but no one, were he in a more sane frame of mind, that he would normally beg for lube from. But eventually a door opened.

Crystal stood there, half dressed, haphazardly covered with a sheet while some woman whined in the depths of the room. “Roger?”

“I need lube,” said Roger.

Crystal chuckled with no real amusement, as if he was waiting for the punchline. That is, until his eyes drifted down, at which point his laughter was entirely genuine. “It must be a crisis if you’re wandering in the halls with a hard-on. I might have some but don’t hold your breath,” laughed Crystal. He disappeared into the room and left Roger alone in the hall. Roger shifted from foot to foot and held his breath until Crystal returned and set the bottle in his hand. “Tell her hello from me.”

Roger laughed, smiled, or otherwise acknowledged his comment and hurried back to his room. His hands shook as he turned the key and shoved the door open with a bit too much force and slam it with the same amount of drunken energy. He looked to the bed, and saw John, nestled up awkwardly under the covers. Any remaining clothes he might’ve had on when Roger left discarded and piled next to the bed.

“Sorry it took so long,” said Roger. He couldn’t help feel a bit shy as he made his way across the room, tugging at the buttons on his shirt a bit more gently than he’d done before.

“Wasn’t sure you’d come back,” said John quietly.

“Why’s that?” Roger tugged his shirt off his arms and threw it.

“Don’t know,” said John, eyes on Roger’s every movement.

“Well I did.” Roger took the few remaining steps to him and leant down to kiss him. The angle was awkward and made his back tighten but he didn’t care as long as it meant giving John whatever he needed, whatever he wanted. He stood up only to shove his trousers down, John’s hand jumping in to help him there. He sat on the very edge of the bed to kick them off completely before peeling the covers back.

John flinched a bit at the loss of heat but in seconds Roger was moving his way in between his legs, kissing up every inch of his body, stroking his poor neglected cock as he went and before he knew it all that warmth, that heat, was back.

“You ever done it like this before, Deaky?” asked Roger. John pushed his hips up against Roger, pressed his cock against Roger’s, and shook his head no.

“‘ave you?” said John, his voice uneven.

“Not with a man,” laughed Roger, knowing that was very apparent. “But I’ve done it, it won’t hurt.”

“I don’t care if it does,” replied John. Roger felt his cock twitch with that, felt the need grow stronger and he cursed his nervous hands for taking so long to coat his fingers in lube.

He pressed a kiss to his jaw, just under his ear, when he pushed his first finger in. John winced and hissed at the feeling. Roger curled his finger a few times, getting him used to how it moved, and added a second, then a third. John groaned, a deep animalistic groan as Roger’s fingers worked him open. Roger kept his mouth on his neck, sucking dark marks wherever he could, distracting him from any discomfort the only way he knew how.

“Just fuck me,” whispered John. “Just do it, I want it.”

Roger sat up to meet his eyes. “You’re sure? We’ve got the whole night.”

“I’m sure, just do it,” groaned John.

Roger didn’t need to be told twice. He coated himself in as much lube as he could, desperately hoping it’d be enough, and slowly, evenly, entered him. Roger felt his muscle’s panic a bit and kissed him with a distracting amount of passion, and slowly stroked his cock just enough, just until he felt John relax.

“Okay?” asked Roger once he was fully seated in John. The tight heat of his body made it damn near impossible to keep his composure.

“Big,” replied John, his voice cracking in discomfort, “but good.”

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” husked Roger as his hips moved in shallow rolls. He sucked John’s tongue, bit his lip, reached up to tug his hair as his movements got a bit deeper. “God, you’re perfect.”

John responded with a deep moan that Roger reciprocated. He stayed slow for as long as he could to let John adjust but once John settled into the feeling, Roger sped up. And clawed at John, left marks all across his hips and he pulled him in, bite marks across his jaw, his neck. John was no better, scratching up Roger’s back past the point of it fading in the near future. His heels dug into Roger’s lower back, begging him to go deeper, to go faster as John breathed in his ear the same requests.

It’d never felt so good, it’d never felt so full, so perfect, so incredible. He couldn’t help be a little rougher with John, he was so desperate to get more of him, get closer to him, somehow. He grabbed the back of his knee and pinned it down to the bed to get just that little bit deeper. By the look on John’s dazed face he appreciated it.

“Fuck, Rog,” cried John, his nails dragging across Roger’s hips, pulling him in whenever he could find the strength. His other hand stroking his cock desperately. “I’m close.”

Roger said nothing, but replaced John’s hand with his own as he stroked him, quick and with the perfect amount of wrist. John clutched the bed, clutched Roger’s arm and arched his back off the mattress as he came across his own chest. He was loud, screaming Roger’s name and letting it echo off the walls. His screaming persisted as Roger fucked his oversensitive body, chasing his own orgasm.

“Please, Roger,” cried John, riding the edge of pleasure and agony as Roger kept moving, “come in me.”

“Fuck, Deaky, you sure?” said Roger, a little out of breath the closer he got.

“Yes just fuck me,” whined John, his voice so lost in his own sensitivity it was almost unrecognisable. But Roger couldn’t get enough. He grabbed John’s hips and fucked into him as hard as he could. He couldn’t help the whines, the moans that escaped him as he moved. The orgasm building in him was too intense to try and control what noises he made. But he didn’t care if he sounded desperate, or a little high pitched, not with John.

“God—Deaky—Deaky— _John,_ ” screamed Roger before his hips stilled in John. Roger stopped holding himself up and collapsed on top of John, panting against his chest while John’s legs loosened around him. He felt John’s finger tips drag across his scalp, curl around his hair, trace patterns along his scratched up shoulders. He could’ve stayed like that forever.

“Wow,” whispered John once Roger had caught his breath. Roger laughed a breathy laugh against John’s chest and nuzzled in closer.

“Good?” sighed Roger.

“Amazing,” replied John. “Is it always so intense with you?”

“Intense? I don’t really get called that,” Roger propped himself up, just enough to see John’s beautiful, bright red, sweaty face. “I don’t know, I was just dying to get to you.”

John grinned, and Roger knew, had he not already been bright red, he would’ve turned it. “To _me?”_

“To you,” said Roger. He leant up to press his lips to John’s chastely and full of love. “You look so gorgeous like this.” Roger brushed the hair off his sweaty forehead. “I’m so glad I finally get to see it.”

John just smiled back, a strange shyness in his eyes despite their circumstances. “I was thinking the same of you.”

“Why Deaky,” said Roger, a laugh threatening to leap out, “if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were…dare I say it… _flirting_ with me.”

John tried and failed not to laugh. “Shut up!”

“You think it’s okay to flirt with me just ‘cause I’ve fucked you?” Roger tutted. “What is the world coming to.”

“Shut up,” said John through laughs. “Go on, pull out, I want to rinse off.”

“I’ll pull out if you promise to stop making me uncomfortable with your _suggestive talk_ ,” teased Roger. John’s laugh got caught on a deep moan when Roger pulled out. Roger savoured that wonderful sound and hurried off to warm the shower up for John.

And what started as a shower for John quickly became a shower for them both. Roger couldn’t help but brush against John’s sensitive cock as he lathered him up, and John did the same. Both teasing each other, both laughing and fighting for the spray of the hot water. Roger grabbed the towel on the rack he’d used earlier that day and pulled a second out of the cupboard for John.

Roger didn’t want to ask him to stay. The whiskey’s effects were starting to lessen and the more he said, the more the weight of what they’d done would sink in. So he offered John a pair of boxers, the kind he only really slept in, and when John slipped them on Roger took that to mean he’d stay. He flicked the lights off while John climbed into bed, Roger stumbled in the dark to the edge of the mattress and clumsily joined him.

The ceiling spun a bit, leftover whiskey still in his head, as Roger laid on his side of the bed. His and his alone, John on his own, very separate, side. He wondered if he was supposed to hold him, he knew he wanted to but, maybe that was too much. Too intimate. A sort of admission of things Roger couldn’t admit to really.

“Why are you so far?” said John quietly.

“I thought you might be hot,” replied Roger quickly. As soon as he’d said it he wished he’d come up with a better lie.

“I’m not, I’m cold,” replied John. There was a beat of silence, in which Roger didn’t move, didn’t lunge over to cover John. “Stay there if you like, it’s all right.”

“Okay, goodnight Deaky.”

“Night, Rog.”

Roger held his breath for a second, then two, then he shimmied across the enormous mattress and shyly wrapped an arm around John’s waist. Roger couldn’t see but he knew John was grinning in the way his breathing hitched in a laugh. He turned, held on to Roger just as tight as he was holding him. And before Roger could think too hard about it all, before he could sober all the way up, he was asleep, his leg slotted between John’s, his hand in his hair, his nose against John’s.

~~~

A sunbeam directed right to Roger’s eyes woke him. He blinked his bleary eyes and took stock. He was alone, the bed cold except for him. And he might’ve believed it all to be a dream, the whole messy affair, had he not spotted John silently cursing as the coffee machine refused to brew across the room.

What had he done. What the fuck was he thinking. John, the married father of one, the bassist in their band, one of his dearest friends. How could he. How could he. _How could he?_ A man? A man for God sakes, a fucking man. He fucked a fucking man. Sure he’d kissed him, got off with him, sucked his cock a bit but…that was bout to happen between friends eventually. But to actually fuck him was truly crossing some sort of line. With himself, with their friendship, with basic decency he was sure.

“Oh,” said John catching his eye, “did I wake you?”

Roger shook his head and sat up. “Woke myself.”

“Coffee?”

Roger shook his head again.

“Just as well, it’s not brewing,” said John with an uncomfortable grin. Roger reciprocated it half-heartedly, not bother to really pretend. “You alright?”

Roger sighed deeply. “I don’t know.”

“Me either,” said John

“Really?” said Roger, his voice very clearly relieved.

“Yes really,” laughed John. “What you thought last night was a breeze for me?”

“No, I guess not,” said Roger joining in on the laughing. It wasn’t entirely genuine, both of their laughs were laced with tension, with uncertainty, but there was still a sense of camaraderie in that. A sense of security in knowing they were _both_ insecure. Roger felt exposed, known in a way he never wanted to be, and it put him at ease to know John felt the same way. “Fun though.”

John smirked, “very fun.”

Roger didn’t know what to say beyond that. He didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to acknowledge it happened, though, on some level he wanted nothing more than for this to be his new normal. In a perfect world, or maybe a different world, this could be who he was, but not this one. The world Roger lived in was full of music, fun, and _women_. The man who fucked his married friend, married bandmate, just wasn’t him. At least he didn’t want that to be him.

“Rog,” called Freddie from the door, knocking once or twice, lazily. “You awake in there, darling?”

Without a thought to it, John hurried to find and reassemble his clothes.

“Yes, what is it?” replied Roger, hopping out of bed and throwing on the first shirt he found in his bag.

“Veronica called Deaky but he never answered, so she called the manager and his room’s empty. You got any idea where he might be, it sounds like she needs to speak to him urgently,” said Freddie.

Roger looked to John, unsure if his lie was solid enough to pass Freddie’s nose, but too frazzled to try anything else.

“He’s in here.”

“What?” said Freddie on the other side of the door. Roger mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ to John before hurrying to open the door, putting on his best face of total innocence when he did. “Morning—Why is John in here?”

“Came back from the bar last night pissed,” said Roger with a fake laugh as he fondly remembered a fake memory. Freddie took a step into Roger’s room and waved at John as he found his jacket that he’d thrown on the couch the night before. “It was no use trying to get him back to his own room I let him stay in have another drink with me.”

“Can’t say I was much better off last night,” said Freddie with a wink and a chuckle.

“What’s the issue with Ronnie? You said it was dire,” said John, trying to tug his boots on with relative urgency.

“Oh no, not an _emergency_. She’s just in a rush and wanted to tell you something,” said Freddie, his smile widening. “Go on hurry, she’s got big news. She’s on hold on one of the manager’s phones, go down the hall the doors wide open. Also we’re checking out soon so make it quick.”

John cocked his head but hurried out, wandering into the hall looking for his wife.

“Go on then,” said Roger, crossing his arms, “what’s the big news.”

“Robert said his first word!” said Freddie in an excited whisper.

“What was it?”

“I didn’t hear, the connections not great, but how exciting! His little baby’s all grown…” Freddie’s words stopped dead as his eyes focused on a spot just behind Roger.

“What is it?” said Roger, turning to look.

“Is that…lube on the nightstand?” said Freddie, knowing damn well that it was.

“Oh that,” Roger cracked his knuckles nervously.

“You know last night, when I got home, I ran into Crystal,” said Freddie. Roger turned to him with wide eyes and a pounding heart but he prayed his face wasn’t too obvious. “He said you showed up at his door last night, disheveled and riled up and said you needed lube in a hurry.”

“Right—Yes, for the girl—I had a girl in here last night,” said Roger.

“With John?” replied Freddie.

“Oh—God—no of course not, how awful. No, she was just dozing when I heard John in the hall. You know I don’t like them to sleep over so it was a good excuse to kick her out and then John and I dug into the Southern Comfort.” Roger was a bit impressed with himself for formulating that one so quick.

“Okay,” said Freddie, mostly believing it by the look on his face. “Well get to packing, we’ve got to be out soon.”

“Sure thing, Fred,” said Roger, hurrying him out, following him to the door. Though he knew there was nothing else incriminating lying around, he panicked thinking there might be some remnant of the night before that Freddie would pick up on if he lingered for one moment longer.

With him gone, Roger started his packing. Most of his things never left the bag while they were on tour, but his clothes from last night were scattered. He picked them up one by one and tried not to focus too hard on the memories they brought up. Tried to stuff them in his bag without thinking of the way John tugged them off. Tried to get dressed without thinking about the scratches marring his back.

Roger was unconsciously flexing his shoulder, trying to feel the sting of the scratches, when the door opened. John shuffled in with a little smile.

“How was Ronnie?” said Roger.

“Good,” said John, his voice sullen.

“That’s good,” said Roger absently as he zipped up his bag.

“Yeah…Roger…” began John. Roger looked over to him. His eyes looked guilty, his face embarrassed.

It made sense, made sense that talking to his wife, hearing from his only son broke the spell of the night before and made those decisions seem less inevitable and more careless. And though he knew, right then and there, if he asked John to end it with her he would, and if John asked him right then and there to be a well kept but constant secret, Roger would’ve done that too. But what good would that do anyone?

“Why don’t we forget it?” said Roger.

“What?” John’s voice sounded hurt, as if he hadn’t expected such an obvious solution.

“You’ve got a son, a wife. There’s really no sense in talking this out because that’s the bottom line, so why don’t we forget it ever happened?” said Roger.

“You want that?” said John, his voice a little strained.

No. Roger didn’t fucking want that. He wanted to spill his guts, to lay out every unknown emotion on the table right then and there and have John sift through it with him. Have him understand how deep Roger’s feels went even when he didn’t want them to, even when he refused to name them. He wanted to stay there, in the hotel, and spend days on end with John. Exploring him in every way he could with that newfound openness of the truth.

“It’s for the best,” said Roger. “I think.”

“Maybe.” John’s eyes left Roger’s gaze and focused absentmindedly on the middle distance. “I guess maybe it is.”

“We’re still friends,” said Roger. He took the few steps left to reach him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing’s changed. Remember last time? We both thought the sky was falling the morning after that and it wasn’t.”

John stared at him, his eyes saying more than Roger wanted to hear. He knew this wasn’t the same. He knew that the drunken handjobs in a coat closet were not at all on par with John confessing his feelings for Roger and Roger responding with the most intense sex he’d ever had with anyone. But for their own sakes they had to pretend they were the same.

“I should go pack,” said John after a long silence. Roger couldn’t think of anything good, anything worthwhile to say to him as he watched John leave.

~~~

The hotel breakfast wasn’t good. Roger always felt that as the quality of the hotels went up slowly over their years of touring, so should the food served there. Not so. Roger came down, last, and was seated in front of a plate of eggs and bacon made fresh a few hours ago. Freddie scolded him for being late and slid a glass of orange juice his way, hoping to perk him up.

“I’m getting on the bus,” said John, “I’m exhausted.”

“Have a good nap, Deaky,” called Freddie after him. John waved at their little table and wandered out to one of their road managers to be pointed in the direction of the tour bus and specifically the bed inside of it. “God he’s covered in love bites, he looks so cheap.”

“He had a good night,” said Brian.

“He tried to tell me he didn’t go home with anyone, that that was all some girl at the bar,” Freddie picked his coffee mug up and blew across the surface of it. “It’s like he thinks I’ll rat him out to Veronica or something.”

“No he’s not lying,” said Brian. He threw his napkin onto his plate and took the last sip of his coffee. “He and Roger shared a car home, they both had an exciting night of solitude,” said Brian with a cheeky smile Roger’s way as he stood and wandered off to join John. More than ever in his life, Roger wished for Brian to be there with a boring addition to the conversation if only to stop what he knew was about to happen.

“So,” said Freddie, once Brian was out of earshot. Roger turned slowly to meet his eyes and sure enough they were full of superiority and anger, “you found him in the hall huh?”

“It’s nothing,” said Roger, pointedly looking away.

“Roger this is how bands fall apart, you don’t see Robert Plant off shoving his dick into John Paul Jones do you? No, you fucking well don’t because it’s a bad idea,” said Freddie in a stern whisper. “And since when are you off fucking men? Where the fuck did all of this come from?”

“It’s none your business,” snapped Roger just as sternly. “It won’t interfere with the band.”

“What the fuck is going on—”

“It’s not your fucking business,” spat Roger. “It’s all over with, it’s done, it’s none of anyone’s concern. Drunken mistake is all, it’s embarrassing, I don’t want to talk about it but it’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Then why do you seem so sad?” said Freddie, his voice softening. The stress, the fear of the putting the band at risk abating and the motherly love coming out in his big, pity stricken eyes.

“I’m not fucking talking about this,” said Roger, firmly. He stood from his seat, threw his napkin in his half-eaten food, and hurried off to join Brian and John on the tour bus.

He’d apologise later, quickly and vaguely, to Freddie. He knew his concerns were coming from good places, places Freddie had been before. And that was why he didn’t want his pity or sympathy. He didn’t want to share this, didn’t want to be the same way as him. That was too much to deal with. He wanted to ignore it, to force it down and pretend he was much drunker the night before than he really was. That worked before it could work again.


	6. A Day At The Races II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! So once again to everyone who comments thank you so much you make my day! Secondly, we're getting near to the end of it. This one is a bit shorter mostly because the story felt weird without it but I didn't want to cut up the following chapter to fix that feeling so the next one will be a bit bulkier but anyway! Here's the next chapter I hope you enjoy!

**A Day At The Races II**

John spread out three, maybe four, photos of baby Robert out on the breakroom table. Freddie, sat next to him, scooted in closer to admire them. Roger, stood behind John, leaned over him to get a good look while Brian pretended he had the energy to coo at the photos while his eyes threatened to close.

“He’s gotten so big,” said Freddie, half pleased, half sad.

“He’s heavy too,” laughed John.

“He’s darling,” said Roger with a sincerity that wasn’t often found in him. John tilted his head back to smile up at Roger, Roger felt his heart jump and brushed it away quickly. All those thoughts, those feelings got neglected and ignored as soon as Roger remembered they were there. One day they’d leave all together.

“You don’t come ‘round as much,” said John, staring up at Roger, “Robert misses you.”

“Yes well,” said Roger, his words leading nowhere. He didn’t visit the Deacons as often anymore because, well, he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want to think about what he felt for John, didn’t want to think about what John’s family meant for him, how much of a dead end those very strong, very sincere feelings were. Didn’t want to sit and play with John’s son knowing he was an entirely separate part of his life. That John’s world didn’t feature him as prominently as Roger’s featured John.

“You two set on one or we considering a second?” said Freddie.

“Oh a second, a fifth, a ninth,” said John with a laugh that made Roger’s stomach turn.

“That many?” Roger’s voice cracked.

“Not immediately but Ronnie and I both want a big family. I came from two, she came from three, I think four or five might be the limit,” John shrugged, “we’ll see.”

“How many will you name after me?” said Freddie.

“All,” said John. “We’re actually renaming Robert as soon as the courts let us.”

“Excellent news. Congratulations, I can’t wait for a whole litter of Freddie Deacons that I get to influence,” said Freddie as he clapped John on the back.

“We should get back to recording,” said Roger through gritted teeth. “It’s late.”

Brian groaned. “It’s you and me then.”

“ _Perfect_ ,” replied Roger. Something about the drums and guitar being recording together made the experience insufferable for them both. At best it was petty squabbling, at worst they were both threatening to leave the band.

Roger couldn’t help but bicker when Brian got in his own arse about what the album should sound like. When every recording session became a question of ‘what genre are we’ Roger got easily riled up and started picking fights at random. And Brian wasn’t one to back down, he might’ve been in their younger years but not anymore, not now that the bastard had a few hits.

“It’s too fucking slow and you know it’s too fucking slow!” screamed Roger behind his kit. “You know damn well you’re telling me to slow down _out of spite!”_

“Oh of course that’s it, Rog,” said Brian with an eye roll. His technique for arguing was to never yell and in his own head that meant he always won. But Roger knew better. “You’re right, this is about me getting the better of you and not at all what’s best for the fucking song, fucking idiot.”

“Fucking idiot?” said Roger, standing up from his kit. Though Brian was a good five or more inches taller than him, Roger could tell he was about to do anything to avoid their disagreement moving beyond words.

“Well,” stammered Brian, “you’re going too fast—”

“Turn the fucking click on over the loudspeakers!” screamed Roger directly at the producer sat behind the mixing boards. The awful sharp sound of the click track filled the room. “What does that sound like to you?!”

“Don’t be such a child,” sighed Brian.

“That’s the fucking tempo, that’s what I was fucking playing!” screamed Roger.

“Rog,” said Freddie over the speaker, “we’ll slow it down a bit on the click, see what Brian’s trying to show us.”

“Don’t tell me you think this is too fucking fast, it’s _dragging_ on and on, we slow this fucker down any more it’s going to put people to fucking sleep!” said Roger.

“Just try it.”

Freddie’s voice was gentle as ever and his eagerness to keep the peace made Roger sit back down. For Freddie’s sake if not his own he wouldn’t tackle Brian to the ground no matter how bad he wanted to. He played his drums at the new tempo that he’d fought so hard to avoid. It was so self indulgent on Brian’s part, slowing the entire fucking song down just so he could wail on his fucking guitar for a bit longer, meanwhile Roger was leaving dead air left and right. He could’ve filled it in but he felt that leaving it as-is made his point much better.

They finished the take. Brian looked satisfied with himself, his face a sort of half hearted pleased. “Not bad.”

“Shit,” spat Roger.

“Ah, well, at least you’re not being dramatic,” sighed Brian.

“I’m not being dramatic, you’re being a primadonna,” said Roger. “You’ll do anything to lengthen you’re part even if it means fucking the rhythm—I mean Fred have you tried singing it this slow? You honestly think this fucking shit would sound good slow?”

“Hey!” spat Brian. “Can you be civil, the song’s good.”

“Oh fuck off, ‘be civil’, fucking arsehole,” said Roger.

“Rog, what’s gotten into you?” said Freddie with an uncomfortable laugh.

“I’m sick of being told how to fucking do my fucking job, I know how fast this song ought to go and the drums keep time,” said Roger.

“You’re being so immature,” said Brian.

“Oh fuck off, I know you think you’re so far above me, I know you love when I get angry. It fuels your pathetic superiority complex. I’m very sorry that you were a virgin until you were nearly twenty two and feel the need to be the best at everything else to make up for it but being good at guitar doesn’t make you good at this, you’re fucking bad at it, you’re in it for yourself.”

“And you’re not?” laughed Brian.

“No I’m in it for the fucking music, for what sounds best not for what’s the most fun to fucking play,” said Roger.

“Oh _come off_ it Roger, we all know you have more fun playing fast, you really expect me to believe that’s not the reason you want it faster,” said Brian.

“Fuck you, and fuck this fucking song!” spat Roger.

“Maybe,” said John’s soft voice over the speaker, “we should take it down a bit? Take a break even?”

“Oh _now_ he speaks!” spat Roger. “Funny how it always is with you, John. You sit and bitch and moan to me about the problems we have as the rhythm section and soon as I bring them up you’re playing dumb. I find that very funny.”

“He can bitch and moan but he knows that that doesn’t solve anything in the studio,” said Brian as if speaking to a child.

“John,” said Roger, eyeing him through the glass, “is it too slow, or is it too fast.”

“Don’t put him on the spot,” said Brian. He swatted Roger’s shoulder, without looking Roger swatted at him back, hitting nothing but getting him to take a step further away.

“Answer,” said Roger with a little too much force.

“Too fast,” spat John. “Twat.”

Roger knew he was on the verge of saying things he couldn’t take back. So instead of daring to open his mouth again, he chucked his drumsticks at the glass, kicked over a crash cymbal and let the doorknob slam into the wall as he swum the door open. He had his keys, didn’t need his jacket that was lost somewhere in the studio.

He shoved the backdoor open and the cold outdoor air nipped at his cheeks almost instantly. He began the long shuffle to his car, muttering what he wanted to say, what he wished he’d said better on the way. He didn’t know, honestly, why he was so pissed off.

This was far from the first time Brian had asked him to slow something down, it was far from the first time he didn’t think that was a good idea. But something about his tone, his demeanor, something Roger couldn’t quite place was needling at him. Fucking Brian always fucking up his perfect drumming demanding he drag it all out. He shoved his car key into the door of his car, nearly breaking it off in the process.

“Rog!” Roger looked up from his door to see John hurrying out of the studio. “Wait! Hold on!”

“Go away!” shouted Roger at him from across the carpark, but he didn’t open his car door. He waited for John to scurry over to him in the cold, his nose already red, his hands deep in his pockets. “What’s so urgent?”

“I didn’t want you to leave and my last thing said to you was ‘twat’. What if you got in a car wreck and the last thing I did was call you a twat,” said John. He leant against Roger’s car door, stopping him from yanking it open.

“Well,” Roger had a lot he wanted to say but none of it sounded put together or even coherent so he went with, “why didn’t you side with me?”

“I don’t know, maybe this song does need to be slower—” began John.

“It’s not fair for you to complain about the way they run songs, and then leaving me out to dry when the argument comes up. I _know_ you agree with me.”

“I didn’t want a fight,” said John. “A discussion is fine but you always bring it up a notch, you and Brian. Like brothers in _every_ way.”

“But you didn’t call _Brian_ a twat.”

“Brian didn’t put me on the spot.”

“I was upset,” said Roger.

“I know,” said John. He looked at Roger with a lot of sympathy, a lot of pity in his eyes. Roger cocked his head, wondering why. Sure, he’d forced himself out of the studio but they had yet to have an album go by without Roger throwing a fit during the recording. “But were you upset about the tempo?”

“Yes,” said Roger with a laugh, “I thought I made that _very_ clear.”

“So…the fact that I was…passing around photos of Robert and talking about more kids _minutes_ before that outburst had nothing to do with it?” said John. He didn’t look smug, he didn’t look guilty, he didn’t look apologetic, he looked gentle, and calm, ready to accept whatever Roger would throw at him.

“Fuck is that supposed to mean?” said Roger.

“Okay,” sighed John. “I guess I’m wrong but…”

“But?” prompted Roger, unsure what he was hoping for. John looked equally unsure of what he had to offer.

Roger reached out, his fingertips wrapping around one of John’s belt loops. He tugged and stepped into John, and leaned into him, and pressed his lips to John’s in one smooth, slow motion. He still tasted the same, still felt the same pressed against Roger. Roger still felt the same too. And though much of him did want to throw open his car and take John in the backseat, more of him wanted to stay there. His hand around John’s waist, the other trailing up his back, just feeling him, being close to him.

“Roger,” John turned his head, Roger’s lips dragged across his cheek. “No.”

“Fuck,” muttered Roger. He took a step away from John and leaned back against the car behind him.

“You can’t do this, Roger,” spat John. “You can’t just take from me what you want when it’s convenient for you.”

“I wasn’t trying to—” began Roger.

“What were you trying to do?” snapped John. Roger didn’t have an answer. He’d kissed him long before he thought about what he was doing, he knew John would hate that answer just as much.

“Deaky! Rog!” Roger and John both jumped when they heard Freddie call their names from the doorway. He waved at them with great enthusiam, like they might've somehow missed them. “Who’s coming back in?”

John looked to Roger expectantly. Roger stood up straight, shoved John out of the way of his car door, and slammed it as he got in. He heard John mutter something as he stormed back inside, not bothering to turn around. But Roger swore he heard Freddie call after him just as he'd bottomed his car out hurriedly speeding out onto the main road.

~~~

To distract himself from his own guilt over the entire night’s events, Roger dove deep into an old comic he had as a kid. Something he knew backwards and forwards, something he could recite from memory, but something that soothed him in a way. Something that reminded him of simpler, _much_ simpler times in his life. When had he become such a convoluted mess of a person. He’d done things he never thought he would. Maybe he could pass it off as a bit of fun, or a stupid mistake. But most days he couldn’t make light of it, couldn’t help how strange, how isolated from himself he felt.

The doorbell rang. And Roger put down his comic. It rang again and he got up from his couch and padded his way, quietly, to the door. The few neighbours he had were discreet, but there were a few stray fans that always found him. Not as many as Freddie but enough to bother him. He wasn’t in the mood to awkwardly sign a few autographs of young teenagers and that was just the best case scenario.

“Roger!” Three loud bangs on Roger’s front door followed. “Unlock it, I can’t find my spare key.”

Roger assumed he’d imagined Freddie’s voice, but the subsequent screeches of ‘let me in’ proved him wrong. He hurried around the corner to unlock the door for him and swing it wide open.

“Took you long enough,” said Freddie.

“I thought you might be a fan,” said Roger.

“Conceited,” teased Freddie. “You got tea made?”

“Uh, no but—Fred, I’m really not in the mood for…whatever this is,” said Roger, gesturing to Freddie. “I’d rather be alone right now.”

“I know,” said Freddie. He hung jacket up on the pegs by the door. “That’s why I came.”

Without another word or permission, Freddie meandered his way to Roger’s kitchen. He knew his way around, Freddie often had bouts of nostalgia over their days living together not so long ago that he’d camp out at Roger’s for awhile. And vice versa. It was almost just as much Freddie’s kitchen as it was Roger’s at this point. It wasn’t long before had the kettle heating up while he rummaged his way through Roger’s meager selection of teas.

“You really must get some taste,” said Freddie.

“I mustn’t,” replied Roger tiredly as he sat down at the little table on the opposite wall to the stove. Freddie’s presence had quickly faded from nuisance to comfort. As per usual Freddie knew better than him, and he was right, Roger didn’t want to be alone.

“You look like hell,” said Freddie. He looked at Roger like he was ill. Roger just shrugged in response, unsure of what to say, no energy to figure it out. Freddie was quiet as he got out two mugs, and put aside the loose tea in favour of the cheaper tea bags, he knew Roger couldn’t taste the difference. He poured them both a mug and set them down on the table. His chair screeched as he pulled it out and as he pushed it back in but Roger didn’t mind the abrasive noise as long as he had the company. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” said Roger. No point putting on airs in front of Freddie.

“I’m sorry,” Freddie took a deep breath, “that when I found out what happened I was so focused on the band and the politics of it…I—I don’t know why I didn’t ask what you were feeling or thinking or…anything like that. I should’ve.”

Roger waved his apology away. “It doesn’t matter, that was ages ago.”

“It matters,” insisted Freddie. “So…how do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” repeated Roger. “Maybe I don’t feel anything.”

“You do,” said Freddie. He inched Roger’s mug of tea a bit closer. “I can stay up all night, you know I can. Might as well tell me now.”

Roger smirked and wrapped his finger around the teabag’s string, dipping it in and out of the water before getting bored and letting it sink down. “I don’t know, Fred. I thought my life was going to be one thing, I was _so sure_ for _so long_ , and now I don’t know that anymore. I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Did you really have no idea until him?” said Freddie.

“I mean,” Roger sat back in his chair, “who doesn’t think about it sometimes but…no one actually does it.”

“It turns out most people who think about it, want it,” said Freddie in a hushed voice, a smirk across his face.

“I guess,” sighed Roger. “I just…I thought…I don’t know,” He rubbed his face, harshly. Partly out of sleepiness, partly out of frustration. “I don’t want this.”

“It’s not a disease,” said Freddie, cutting off that train of thought instantly. “You don’t _want_ to be so short either but you are.”

“Hey,” said Roger, fighting a grin, “I’m taller than you.”

“But my legs are longer,” said Freddie with a wink. Roger laughed despite himself and wrapped his hand around his tea. Though he never brought it to his lips. “Roger, it’s going to be fine. I’m living proof, Reid’s living proof— _Elton’s_ living proof.”

“I don’t—” Roger cringed at the thought, “I don’t want to be living proof. I don’t want anyone to know, anyone to see.”

“Why?” said Freddie, calm and quiet. Patient.

Roger didn’t know the answer. Didn’t know why the idea of being with John in private was heaven but having his friends, his family, and god forbid _the public_ knowing about it felt so disgusting, vulgar even. But he felt a strange sense of guilt telling Freddie that. He didn’t have a problem with it _for Freddie_ , but for himself it was just all wrong.

“It’s not me,” said Roger finally.

“Then why do you care so much?” said Freddie. “If this isn’t you why do you have to fight so hard to prove it’s not?”

Roger was silent, he didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to know his own feelings. His eyes welled up as he took a sip of his tea. And just as Freddie had known that Roger needed company for the night, he knew his limits. He reached across the little table and squeezed Roger’s hand. Roger smiled, stopping only to take an actual sip of his tea,

“How’s about, we turn on a good record, none of the shite you listen to, and I beat you within an inch of your life in scrabble?” said Freddie. “Just like old times.”

“That sounds perfect,” said Roger. He appreciated that Freddie didn’t tease him for the way his voice cracked when he said that.

Roger found and put together the game board on the table, while Freddie rummaged around Roger’s kitchen for dinner. Neither of them were the best cooks so they ate what they could while cold and heated up leftovers as the night got longer and the game got more competitive.

Every day, Roger was grateful for Freddie. For his talent, his friendship, his intensity and his fun. But it was nights like those, where Roger was hanging by a thread and Freddie, without being asked, without even being allowed, was there to drag him through it. To keep him company, especially when he couldn’t solve his problems for him, and to promise that they would one day be all right. As they went back and forth between turns on their millionth game of the night, the record player hitting deadwax for the fourth minute in a row, Roger knew that Freddie was right. That it’d all turn out how it was supposed to. Even if that mean Roger didn’t turn out how he thought he was supposed to.

But that would take some getting used to, getting used to that one night of distracting scrabble wouldn’t cure.

“Love you, Fred,” mumbled Roger as he dozed off in his arm chair.

“Mm,” replied Freddie, seconds away from sleep, his face squished against the couch cushions. The record player giving off a quiet hum of white noise as it skipped over the smooth dead wax of a record Freddie hated and suffered through for Roger’s sake.


	7. News of the World I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya everyone! So this is the second to last chapter. Remember it's angst with a happy ending so don't worry! Thank you for the lovely comments, I'm sorry this chapter took a bit longer to post but it's here now! I hope you enjoy, please comment if you do! <3

**News of the World**

Roger watched intently as Freddie and Brian lined their eyes. Brian had long ago stopped with any foundations once he’d accidentally stained some of his stage clothes’ collars with his foundation-laced sweat. Freddie however didn’t like the look of any shine on his face, at least not when they were being filmed and apparently they were tonight.

Long ago, when Freddie asked Roger to line his eyes with the three of them, Roger declined saying he’d sweat it all off instantly and didn’t want black kohl irritating his eyes when that happened. He made up a similar excuse for why he couldn’t wear nail polish with Freddie and Brian, something about it coming off to easily, not being worth the trouble. But sitting in a chair behind them, absently taping his hand up, he wondered what it might be like to just say fuck it and cover himself in all sorts of rouges and mascaras.

“You’re not tired are you?” said Freddie, eyeing him in the mirror.

“No,” laughed Roger, “of course not, no.”

“You look glassy,” said John.

“I was running over a song in my head,” said Roger, “jitters.”

“As long as you don’t fall asleep mid show, I don’t care if you’ve got the jitters or the fucking flu,” said Freddie.

“John are you sure you don’t want any for the cameras?” said Brian, offering John his eyeliner pencil. Roger was fairly sure you weren’t supposed to pass those around but none of them could really be arsed to care anymore.

“Maybe a bit,” said John with a shrug. He hadn’t worn any since Freddie had stopped being able to convince him to do it against his will. He didn’t like pencils near his eye, it always made him flinch. Even now, even voluntarily, his eyes watered as Freddie lined them for him.

“I keep telling you, you look so sexy with a bit of makeup,” sighed Freddie, “I don’t know why you won’t do it for shows.”

“It’s medieval torture,” said John wiping the tears off his cheeks.

“You’re such a baby,” teased Freddie, grinning as he curled his lashes. Roger looked on, yearning to be doing the same. Just to try it, just to see what it was like. Why had he closed himself off to something everyone else had so much fun with. He wished, just once more, Freddie would try to convince him to have a go, to make his whole face up.

“What’re you looking at?” said Freddie through a laugh. “You want some?” he turned to hold out their collective eyeliner pencil for him.

Roger scoffed. “Course not. I’m a natural beauty,” said Roger with a cheeky grin. Freddie rolled his eyes and went right back to what he was doing.

Why couldn’t he just do it, just assert what he wanted, even if he wasn’t sure, even if he wouldn’t do it again, why was he too fucking shy to ask to try out some fucking eyeliner with three of his closest friends. He’d been offered the chance, multiple times now, to dive in with them. He had the cameras an excuse to try it tonight and he was still totally unable to just reach out and take it.

“Are you okay?” said Brian. Roger snapped out of his inner monologue and saw Brian eyeing him through the mirror. “You look so far away.”

“I’m fine,” said Roger, pitching his voice up, hoping to make it more convincing.

“You don’t seem fine,” added John from across the room, in the middle of lacing his boots up.

“I mean it,” assured Roger, “I’m fine.”

“The cameras can wait until the next show,” said Freddie, turned in his chair, brow furrowed. “If you’re ill I don’t want to push you on stage and make it worse.”

“I’m not ill,” said Roger, hoping a laugh would reassure them, but it didn’t. Their faces remained stony and stoic as they all three stared back at him. “Look—If I were ill I would say so, I wouldn’t fuck up a recording for the sake of my pride. I’m not ill, I’m not sleepy, I was just lost in thought.”

Freddie muttered ‘mhm’, sounding unconvinced as he turned back to the mirror. Brian did the same. Roger breathed a sigh of relief when their eyes were off him, and looked over to John, hoping he was back to tying his boots up. But he wasn’t. He was staring at Roger with all the intensity and concern in the world. His fingers tugged at the laces, but they weren’t making any progress. Roger wondered if he was as transparent as he felt.

“Alright!” said Freddie with a loud clap. “I’m ready for my closeup!”

“Good,” said their tour manager, “you’re on in three.”

“In three?!” said Roger. He wasn’t even dressed yet. With the added panic of scrambling into his shoes and clothes, he didn’t have time focus on thinking too much about damn near everything. He stripped and had Freddie tug him into his shirt while Brian yanked his trousers off and their manager tossed his shoes for him.

Once he was behind the kit he felt a sense of security, from everyone else and from his own thoughts. He had to focus on drumming, he wanted to focus on drumming, and he did. He played each beat perfectly, getting just the right sound out of every note, every hit, as if perfecting his live performance might cure all his ills. He never even came close to a slip up, normally the adrenaline was so furiously pumping that he’d turn eighths to sixteenths, add an extra bass hit or two here and there when he got overzealous. But for tonight the drums weren’t a vessel to carry his excitement but an activity to quell his anxieties.

~~~

Roger toweled off, him and Freddie were always the only ones to work up a real sweat. Though Roger was always soaked where as Freddie usually had a nice sheen to him. He scrubbed his skin and massaged his neck while Freddie ran a comb through his hair and Brian examined the cut he’d got.

“I told you not to pick at your callouses,” chided John as he fell into a chair. “Now it’s cut that has to heal before it can callous over and it can’t heal because we’re touring—”

“Yes Deaky,” snapped Brian, “I’m aware of what happened.”

“We all did wonderfully tonight,” said Freddie, in no mood for a fight to break out. “Roger, your drumming sounded studio quality.”

“Actually—I was gonna say,” said Brian, interrupting his own sulking, “you could’ve put Bonham back there and I wouldn’t’ve known the difference.”

“Oh,” said Roger, unsure of how to take the compliments, they didn’t often compliment each other so sincerely to their faces, “just showing off for the cameras.”

“No really,” said Freddie.

“You were amazing up there, real…really good,” added John. Roger turned to look at him. His eyes were so intently trained on Roger, his cheeks getting a little pink. Roger stared back, unsure if they were thinking the same thing, if they were feeling the same thing.

“Having the cameras is fun but my head always looks so big on film,” said Freddie.

“You just have a big head Freddie,” said Brian.

“Bitch,” muttered Freddie.

“Fat head,” mumbled Brian.

“Your head looks fat ‘cause you’re ugly hair is so fuckin’ big,” said Freddie. Brian choked on his own spit trying to laugh which broke them all out into smiles and giggles until Brian finally caught his breath. “Alright, I’m ready to get fucked up.”

“Think I might skip it,” said John. He looked at Roger so pointedly, that had to mean something, it had to.

“Aw, Deaks,” said Brian.

“I don’t know, I might come out after I call Ronnie,” John shrugged. “What about you Rog?”

Roger saw Freddie’s hand stop combing through his own hair when he heard that, but he paid it no mind.

“I think I’ll at least go back and shower, might skip tonight too,” said Roger, a bit quieter, as if there was a chance of Freddie not hearing that.

“Just me and you, Fred,” said Brian.

“I suppose it is,” said Freddie, looking through the mirror at Roger who averted his eyes in an instant.

As they made their way to the cars, Roger tried very desperately to keep a safe distance from Freddie and his impending lecture. Freddie and Paul and Phoebe and a few others rode together, Brian had his own friends, John as well, and Roger too. If he could just make it to his own ride out of the venue he could avoid the _looks_ Freddie would give him. John’s car pulled away, then Brian’s. Roger was practically shoving past people to dive into the backseat of his own. And he was only seconds away from getting there when someone tugged the back of his collar roughly.

“Rog,” said Freddie, hurriedly grabbing his wrist and tugging him off to the side while the last bit of people got settled in the cars.

“We should go,” said Roger, gesturing to the cars, now both waiting on them to leave.

“Roger,” said Freddie, almost sad.

“It’s all fine,” said Roger, unsure if it was. “C’mon, let’s go, you don’t want to keep anyone waiting.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Freddie tiredly. He pushed past him and jumped in his car. Roger did the same.

Crystal, the girl Crystal was with, and another roadie were in with him. All chatting about this that and the other while Roger wondered if Freddie had to worry, if he actually did know what he was doing. In the most literal sense, he didn’t. He didn’t know what John wanted, what he was planning on with staying behind, but he knew he wanted to find out. He didn’t know what that would do to the band, to John’s family, to his own family, to anyone not even himself. But he didn’t care.

~~~

He said goodnights and turned down more invitations to go out and get drunk with everyone else before hurrying to his hotel room. His hands shook as they unlocked the door and his mind began overthinking everything. He threw his jacket on the table and wondered if he should shower like he said he would, or if John was expecting him to come over sooner than that. Or if John was expecting him to come over _at all_. Maybe John was coming to him. Maybe John was on the phone with Ronnie and hadn’t been expecting to see Roger all night.

He cracked open the whiskey that had been sent up and sat blankly in the desk chair. What if John didn’t come, didn’t want anything. What if he’d fabricated this entire suggestive back and forth because he was so pathetic, so desperate for John’s undivided attention that he assumed friendly conversation was really covert code. He took another swig of his whiskey and stood, stretched, and decided on getting in the shower.

A knock on his door interrupted him. He flew to it, embarrassingly fast, as if John might chance his mind in the few seconds it took to get to the door. He paused, took a breath, and opened the door with a bit more nonchalance than he’d run to it with.

“You’re here,” said John.

“So are you,” said Roger. He stepped aside and let John take a step into his room before he shut the door behind them both. John headed straight for the half-finished glass of whiskey Roger had left on the table and downed the rest of it. “I can make you a real drink.”

“I don’t mind,” said John as he refilled the glass.

Roger, full of false confidence, strode up to John with a second glass that he filled for himself. “It’s good whiskey but I know you don’t really like whiskey.”

“I don’t care,” said John. He shifted on his feet and looked down at the couch like he might sit, but never did.

“You alright?” said Roger.

“You know why I’m here don’t you?” said John, his face deathly serious, so serious it made Roger crack a smile.

“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.” He took a step into John and tugged at the buttons on his shirt lazily.

“I miss you.” breathed John. “Watching you up there tonight was torture, I…had to…Well, I’m here.”

“I miss you too,” said Roger. He threaded two fingers through John’s belt loop and pulled him closer. John’s hand came to rest on Roger’s chest, unsteady and shy. “You’re shaking, Deaks.”

“I’m nervous,” said John quietly, an awkward laugh followed that up, as if to cover the sincerity of it.

“That’s okay,” said Roger. He wouldn’t admit to his own nerves. He took another mouthful of the whiskey, set his glass down, and held John’s face in his hands as he mashed their lips together. Rough and uncoordinated but he didn’t care, and he hoped John wouldn’t either.

His hands moved down John’s back, pulling him closer by the hips and moving his tongue against John’s. John tasted like the whiskey they were drinking and tugged at Roger’s shirt, less to remove it and more for balance.

“Rog,” John pulled away, “Rog—“

Roger shushed him with another searing kiss that John melted into before Roger started working open his trousers. He had his belt undone in seconds, his fly undone in a few more, and his hand giving John’s aching cock a tiny bit of relief as he slowly palmed him through his pants.

“Rog,” breathed John.

“Mm,” hummed Roger. He took a step, then another, and backed John up against the mattress before heaving him up onto it. John laughed when he landed and Roger was quick to climb on top of him. John grinned up at him, his hands nervously snaked up Roger’s thighs, up to his hips. Roger didn’t want tenderness he didn’t want to think about anything more than the need, the sexual, animalistic need he felt, and he couldn’t pretend that was all it was if John wanted to really love him. So he grabbed his wrists and pinned them above his head.

“Oh,” said John, half surprise half discomfort. Roger distracted him with a rough, biting kiss, full of teeth and eagerness as he ground his hips down against John’s. John sighed and bucked his hips up to meet his, desperate for more contact, more relief. He trailed his teeth down John’s jaw, sucking and biting his skin when he could before settling against John’s neck. “Rog, be nice,” laughed John as Roger sucked bruises into him. “Slow down.”

“Sorry,” said Roger. He pressed a kiss, an apologetic one, to the mark he’d left on John before switching sides.

“Wait wait,” John squirmed under him, Roger pulled away to meet his eyes. “Can you let go of my hands? I want to touch you too.”

“I er…don’t want that,” said Roger without thinking. The whiskey doing more of the talking than he wanted it to.

“What?” said John, his wrists still pinned. “You don’t want me to touch you?”

“C’mon Deaks,” Roger could already feel his words coming out wrong so he cut them off with a frustrated groan. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”

John stared up at him, blank, and was silent for awhile, for too long, before he whispered, “get off me.”

“Deaky, I—”

“This was a mistake, this was a fucking mistake,” said John as he struggled under Roger.

“No, no it wasn’t, we can still—” began Roger.

“Get off!” interrupted John. Roger rolled off him in an instant and John jumped up to his feet even faster. He hurried to right his clothes.

“Where—where are you going—” began Roger.

“I can’t keep doing this Roger, I can’t fucking do this anymore,” his hands shook as they buckled his belt.

“Do what?” said Roger. He reached out for John’s hand but John jerked away from his touch.

“I can’t be with you!” said John as if it were obvious.

“I’m not asking you to,” said Roger.

“I know!” screamed John loud enough to make Roger jump. John’s eyes welled up, though he tried to pretend they hadn’t. “That’s the whole fucking point here Roger! You broke my fucking heart! Shattered it! I was fucked up for so long and you keep coming back to me, expecting to get off or to have a bit of fun and it’s fucked up! I told you how I felt and you don’t fucking _care_ as long as you get to fuck someone right then and there!”

“That’s not fucking true!” John rolled his eyes and headed for the door. Roger caught his arm and tugged him back towards him, rough and pleading. “And it’s not fair—you came to me tonight—“

“And that was a fucking mistake, I should’ve known nothing changed!” John hiccuped, his tears starting to get the better of him. “Nothing ever fucking changes with you, nothing I do gets through, you just don’t care about me—“

“That’s’s not fucking true! I care about you—“

“Sure you do, you care _so_ much about me that you’ll fuck with my head over and over with your constant denial,” spat John. “I don’t care if you feel anything, I don’t care, because you won’t fucking do anything about it. I put myself on limbs for you constantly and you keep fucking me over for the sake of a night together! Fuck you!”

“That’s not fair!” screamed Roger. “You think this is fucking easy for me?!”

“How the fuck would I fucking know?!” John laughed mirthlessly. “You don’t fucking say anything to me! I don’t know if it’s hard, I don’t know what you’re fucking thinking because in the time we’ve been together you spend all of it shutting up your emotions—shutting up my emotions! So tell me Roger, right now, what do you feel.”

“I…” Roger stammered on a few words, stuttered, and averted his eyes, “that’s not fair, you can’t demand I open up right here, right now—”

“You know what’s not fair?” spat John. “Me telling you I loved you, letting you fuck me like that, and getting tossed out the next morning like I was a fucking groupie. And on top of it all, I had to play a fucking show with you later that day, ride a tour bus with you, and pretend you hadn’t just fucking destroyed me. _That’s_ not fair.”

“I did that because it was better that way!” shouted Roger. “I was trying to make it easy for you to go home to your family—”

“If you believed that you wouldn’t have fucked me,” interrupted John, his voice lower, his arms out, expecting an explanation that Roger just didn’t have.

“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have kicked you out, I shouldn’t have brushed it off and…I’m sorry,” said Roger.

“That’s nice, but it’s not enough for me to stay.” John headed for the door again. None of Roger’s attempts to pull him back in worked, he shook him off every time. It wasn’t fair, Roger had spent so long forcing down those feelings that bringing them up wouldn’t happen on command like that. But, if he was honest with himself, he knew it wasn’t fair to make John wait until he was ready.

“John, please, please,” said Roger, hoping to block the door for a moment while he searched for the right words. John stared at him, impatient and upset, waiting for Roger to finish the thought. “Fuck—Deaky, please stay, please, talk to me, please stay.”

“I know what a mess this is, but you can talk to Freddie about it, I can’t do this to myself anymore, I’m _tired_ ,” John’s voice cracked.

“I can be what you need,” said Roger with a strange amount of conviction. “Let me.” Roger reached forward and pulled John into him by his belt. “Please.” He unbuckled it and might’ve pulled it from the beltloops had John not used it as an opportunity to pushed past him and grab the door.

Roger followed after him pathetically, sticking his head out into the hall and looking down both ways to find him. He was a few doors down, about to disappear into his own room. Roger panicked, nothing left up his sleeve but the unadulterated need he felt to show John he meant it.

“I love you!” screamed Roger. John paused for a moment, staring straight ahead into his hotel room for a moment before turning to Roger, eyes full of resignation, and closing himself up inside his hotel room. He thought about following him, banging on the door, demanding they talk it out. But people would see, they’d ask questions.

Fuck, when would he stop caring what everyone else thought, when would he stop sacrificing his own happiness, John’s happiness, for the sake of saving face.

“Roger?”

Roger turned to look down the other end of the hall. Brian was there, looking at him with an expression Roger couldn’t quite read. He handed his room key off to the woman next to him. She worked the lock open while Brian strode down the hall. The woman hurried inside the room just as Brian made it to Roger’s door.

‘What the fuck was that?”

“Nothing,” said Roger.

“Deaky left here with his belt undone and you screamed ‘I love you’ at him, that’s not fucking nothing,” spat Brian.

“What the fuck do you care?”

Brian lowered his voice, “are you fucking him?”

“You mean right now? No, I’m talking to you,” said Roger.

Brian shoved him. “You know what the fuck I mean.”

Roger was taken aback for a moment. Brian hadn’t ever shoved him on purpose, hadn’t ever laid a finger on anyone on purpose. Roger was full of raw emotion after getting into a screaming match with John. A lot of emotion he planned on solemnly dealing with alone in his hotel room. But Brian gave him an excuse, a marvelous excuse to turn it into anger.

He shoved him back full force. “It’s not your business.”

“If he fucking quits it’s your fault—if the band splits it’s your fault,” spat Brian. “How long has this being going on?”

“That’s not your business either,” Roger shoved him again. Brian shoved back.

“Our livelihoods could go to hell ‘cause you’re too lazy to go down to a bar to fuck someone, you had to fuck our _married_ bandmate.”

“That’s not what happened!” screamed Roger.

“Then what did happen?” snapped Brian.

Roger thought about explaining it all. Thought about leveling with Brian and telling him exactly how he felt, confronting it for himself in the process. And maybe that would’ve been the better choice. But Roger was at the end of his rope, a little drunk, a little tired, and emotionally devastated by the worst broken heart he’d had in a long time. So instead of sitting Brian down and talking it out, he punched him as hard as he could. Aiming for his jaw but getting mostly his cheek and nose.

Brian reeled back and fell against the far wall. He covered his nose that would definitely be bruised in the next hour or so, and slid down the wall until he was sitting. Roger’d never punched anyone in the face but he’d been punched enough to know how disorienting and painful an experience it could be. As soon as he’d done it, as soon as he’d seen Brian reach up to hold his aching face he wished he’d just talked it out, wished he’d been enough of an adult to put those feelings into words instead of a fist.

“Oh my God—Brian, I’m so sorry—” began Roger.

“Fuck you!” screamed Brian, his hands tapping at his nose. Both of them holding their breath, hoping he hadn’t broken it. “The fuck’s the matter with you!”

“I’m sorry!” said Roger.

The elevator down the hall dinged. Freddie walked out of it with Paul on his arm and one of their guards behind him.

“Brian?” said Freddie. “Roger? What’s…?”

“He punched me in the fucking face!” screamed Brian as he wiped his bloody nose on the back of his sleeve.

“He what?” Freddie took a few steps out of the elevator, his eyes raked over Brian and saw the blood staining his shirtsleeve. “Roger what the fuck?!”

“I didn’t mean to!” replied Roger.

Freddie rushed to Brian’s side. He knelt down and inspected Brian’s face as if he had any expertise, as if he’d be able to do anything other than see how bad it was. “Is it broken?”

“I’m sorry, Brian,” said Roger once more.

“Fuck you!”

“Why the fuck would you hit him?!” said Freddie.

“We were fighting I just—I’m so sorry, Brian—“

“Paul go get some ice,” said Freddie tiredly. “What the fuck were you two fighting about that was this bad?!”

Roger looked and Brian, waiting for him to tell Freddie. Brian looked back at him, full of anger. But only for a moment. The anger clear on Brian’s face quickly ebbed away to something more calm, more put together than the bloodied rage mere seconds before.

“I’m waiting!” said Freddie like a mother hen.

“I don’t actually remember what it was, do you Rog?” said Brian. Freddie whipped around to look up at Roger.

“Er, no, I don’t…something boring,” said Roger.

“Something stupid—I shoved him first,” added Brian.

“Oh so you were gonna play victim all night when you started it?” teased Freddie.

“Well I wouldn’t get as much sympathy like that,” said Brian with a forced laugh. Freddie looked over his shoulder at Roger, as if checking to see if Brian was telling the truth, waiting for Roger to interject with his own version of the story. But Roger just laughed with Brian, waiting for this whole episode to be over. Freddie eyed him with a bit of suspicion then looked past him, into his room, no doubt checking if it was empty, and once he was satisfied he turned his attention back to Brian.

“You two fucking apes aren’t allowed to have anymore alcohol on tour, you get so riled up over stupid shit,” sighed Freddie.

Paul returned with the ice and Brian placed it haphazardly on his nose and cheek, squishing it against his skin and reassuring Freddie that his nose wasn’t broken but definitely bruised. Roger stood by awkwardly, wondering if he should be doing something, wondering why Brian hadn’t ratted him out.

“Okay,” Freddie got to his feet and pulled Brian up along with him. “Go to bed you two, no more brawling, we’re bitches not oafs.”

“Sure thing, Fred,” said Brian, the flimsy plastic bag of ice, and his hand holding it in place muffled his voice just a bit.

“Night Fred,” replied Roger meekly. Freddie hurried off to his room, Paul already ahead of him, excitedly unlocking it.

The two of them held their breath and stayed perfectly still, sizing each other up, until Freddie’s door closed. Roger wondered if Brian was staying behind to argue or yell at him. Maybe both, or maybe he wanted to pelt him with questions. Questions about how it started with John or when he’d started liking men, things that were horribly personal that, in the moment, Roger felt almost eager to dive in and tell someone. Holding back nothing.

“Why didn’t you tell Freddie,” said Roger.

“Not his business, not mine either,” said Brian.

“Your only problem’s the band integrity?” said Roger. Brian nodded, earnest and a bit more shy as the slight movement of his head irritated his quickly forming bruises. “You want to let me have a look? Or clean the blood off? I got a biology degree after all.”

Brian tried not to laugh. “I guess that’d be fine.”

~~~

Roger gave Brian a shirt of his own while he let Brian’s blood-stained shirt soak in his bathroom sink. He got cotton balls up each nostril to stop his nose bleeding all down his face. With a damp flannel provided by the hotel, he carefully cleaned the blood off from where Brian had smeared it in the initial shock of the hit. Brian could’ve done it himself but it was more an act of accepting an apology to let Roger do it rather than an actual necessity. Once the blood was gone he was free to press against the bruises on Brian’s nose to check if he’d broken.

“Fuck,” muttered Brian as his eyes watered and a few tears fell. Not true tears, just unavoidable reactions to the acute pain he felt with every light press of Roger’s fingertips. “Fucking feels broken.”

“It’s not,” said Roger, confidently. “Let me get ice though.”

Roger hurried out of the bathroom and heard Brian lazily follow him as he scooped some of his ice into a towel that he twisted up real tight. It was as close to an icepack as they’d get considering they threw the one Paul made out. Brian flopped onto Roger’s couch and took the icepack from him as soon as he turned around to hand it over.

“You’re sure I didn’t break it?” said Brian.

“Positive,” said Roger. “It can be hard to tell when it’s not totally bent out of shape, but it’s not broken. I’d stake my career as a biologist on it.”

“Well we all know how important your biologist career is to you,” said Brian with a laugh. His foot nudged his and John’s glasses of whiskey. Roger rushed to pick them up. It wasn’t like he had to hide it, wasn’t like there was anything more Brian could really know at this point, but he whisked them away and hurried them into a corner of the minibar.

“Oh do you want a drink?” said Roger awkwardly, the glasses still clanging together as he tried to hide them.

“Whatever you already opened,” said Brian, a yawn starting midway through his sentence. Roger brought two more glasses over and poured them each a few fingers of whiskey. “That kind of a night?” said Brian, referring to how much Roger’d poured in their glasses.

“That kind of a night,” sighed Roger.

“What was the fight about?” said Brian.

“You don’t have to ask,” said Roger, knocking his knee against Brian’s.

“You both seem upset,” said Brian. “Really upset.”

“I’m…” Roger’s words trailed off. He didn’t know what he was. Didn’t know what he was going to do either. John wanted something from him that he just couldn’t give, an openness, a self-acceptance that he just didn’t have. He knew, somewhere deep, that it wasn’t fair to ask John to be with him when he forced it into such deep secrecy, even from himself. But on a more surface level, he hoped he’d still stay, hoped he’d still love him. That’s what it really was in the end. Love. Felt both ways though Roger couldn’t say it, he could yell it in a pathetic rage just fine but he couldn’t say it, couldn’t express it the way John could. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I love him,” said Roger.

“So I heard,” said Brian with a little laugh before taking a gulp of his whiskey.

“Fuck,” said Roger, his voice cracking as his eyes welled up. “Oh fuck.”

“Rog don’t,” began Brian, already panicking, he wasn’t good with strong emotion, just too English maybe. Either way his panic brought a smile to Roger’s face.

He wiped the few fugitive tears off his cheeks and laughed at the sound of Brian panicking by his side. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“No, don’t be sorry, fuck’s sake.” He sat his whiskey down and put his ice pack next to it, turning his full attention on Roger. “I’m sorry I pushed you—this does change a lot for the band I just—”

“It’s fine,” said Roger quickly. “Freddie did the same thing.”

“Oh…so he knows?” said Brian.

“Yes,” laughed Roger, he’d taken to rubbing his eyes as if that would stop them watering, “but thank you for lying. He would’ve chewed me out all night over this.”

“Why’s that?” Brian leaned further into the couch and pressed his shoulder against Roger’s.

“He doesn’t want me making a mess of it when John’s already moved on, for everyone’s sake,” said Roger. He bit the tough skin on his thumb and Brian swatted his hand away out of habit.

“How…” Brian sighed and readjusted in the couch, “how do you _know_ he’s moved on? I mean…he did come here tonight.”

“Yes but…” Roger’s voice wavered for a moment, and he thought it might just waver, but then it cracked, and then despite himself, he was crying. Calm, quiet tears, but totally beyond his control. “I can’t do it, Bri, I can’t be that person.”

“Why not?” said Brian, as if it were nothing.

“Why not?” spat Roger. “I’m Roger Taylor. My whole public image revolves around the women I get after shows. That’s what I’m known for—”

“That’s only part of it,” interrupted Brian.

“And what the fuck am I supposed to tell my mum and Clare?” said Roger, flustered. “And I won’t be able to keep it a secret from my father—”

“Is he asking you to tell everybody?” said Brian with his head cocked.

“No,” admitted Roger. He softened and relaxed into the cushions. “No he’s not, he just wants me to tell him that it’s not all meaningless…and I can’t even do that. The thought of it is so…”

“You’re telling _me_ all this but you can’t say it to him?”

“Him walking out on me made it a lot easier to say.” Roger looked very intently at the little reflections across his whiskey as he swirled his glass. “He’s reached his breaking point with me, I think. I don’t blame him. So have I.”

“It’ll work out, I’m sure,” said Brian, with no real conviction.

Brian rested his head on Roger’s, the most comfort he could really offer. He wasn’t as touchy as Freddie but he was quiet in a way Freddie wasn’t. He wasn’t going to offer Roger any advice or platitudes, he wasn’t going to try to distract him or make him smile again, he was going to sit there and let Roger lean on him until he fell asleep or told him to leave. And that was with a bruised face and a bloody nose.

And Roger wondered, for a moment, why he was so afraid of a single soul knowing this deep dark secret. Why he was so afraid to admit it to himself. It changed some things, maybe, but mostly things stayed the same and continued on just as before. Freddie didn’t give a shit, and now he knew Brian didn’t either. So why was he so upset by the mere thought of admitting John wasn’t just someone he fooled around with but someone he wanted, needed very desperately.

Maybe it was his public image that he rather liked as it was, a public image that shielded any insecurities he had. Maybe it was the idea of breaking up a marriage. Or the idea of his family finding out and becoming even more estranged. But if he thought about those things long enough, hard enough, they didn’t matter to him nearly as much as John did. The public could hate him along with his family, his fragile center could have it’s tough exterior totally chipped away, and he wouldn’t care if John were there with him.

But he’d waited too long. This was all well and good but he missed the fucking deadline. John wouldn’t put up with him or his melodramatic outbursts of love and passion followed by cold unfeeling indifference anymore. No amount of swearing he’d had a change of heart would fix that.

“At least we’re on tour,” said Roger, quietly. “At least I can see him every night.”

“Tours don’t last forever,” replied Brian.


	8. News of the World II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a bit, I drafted it three different times , no clue why it was so finicky to write but either way it's done! I hope everyone who read it had fun doing so, I certainly had fun writing it. If you do like this chapter, or any of the others please comment <333 it makes my day! If you want an epilogue for this one as well let me know. My next fic will either be maylor or froger, and I'm considering writing someone as trans? Let me know what everyone thinks and hope you enjoy reading this chapter! <333

**News of the World II**

Roger let the shows come and go. He’d made his bed with John and he had to lie in it. He could enjoy the fleeting moments of company John gave him off stage, could try to make him laugh at the clubs, on the buses, on the planes, could try and get his attention backstage, but he knew where he stood. And John wasn’t going to change his mind on that. Roger knew he’d fucked up one too many times and John had every right to hate, and avoid him. So he let the shows come and go with no argument about their newfound distance.

He tried to find some solace in it, as if there were any upsides. Tried to ignore the fact that he’d been too much of a coward to tell John the truth and now he may have well lost the love of his life. It’d do him no good dwelling on that. And it would’ve been much easier to avoid dwelling on it, if Freddie and Brian didn’t watch him with big sympathetic eyes every time John cut a conversation short or ignored him out of habit. He didn’t need to be reminded that this was awful, that he was being torn apart, he didn’t need their sympathy there, telling him at every turn, that this was sad for him.

Roger, on their way from the hotel to the venue, tried to hop in one of the cars with John who promptly told him they were more or less full up. Roger might’ve made a joke of it and squeezed in anyway had Brian not already been in the back seat looking at him like he was an injured dog.

“No worries,” said Roger quickly. He slammed the car door and stepped back to let it drive off.

“You’re in with me, blondie!” called Freddie from their second car over. Freddie beckoned him over as Paul and a few others loaded up the second car. Freddie still eyed him with pity but he was good enough to stay silent and let Roger stare out of the window at a city he couldn’t remember the name of.

John got dressed and watched Brian and Freddie worry their hair in the mirror in a lazy silence. On a normal day, Roger would be poking and prodding him, trying to make him laugh and it always worked. But today he was sitting on the couch against the wall, his legs stretched out and his eyes focusing on nothing as he got lost in his own head. So lost was he that he didn’t notice Brian snapping in front of his face the first two or three times he did it.

“Good lord, what’s going on in there?” said Brian, tapping the top of Roger’s head.

“Fuck all,” laughed Roger.

“Five minutes, you ready?”

Roger nodded. “Always.”

“I’ve gotta piss,” said John as he hoisted himself out of his chair and walked out without another word.

“Be safe!” called Freddie with a giggle as the door closed.

“You getting sick or something, Rog?” asked Brian, his hand waving in front of Roger’s eyes.

Roger swatted his hand away. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“You do look glassy,” Freddie eyed him from his spot by the mirror. “Paul’s getting me aspirin for that pulled muscle—I bet I can hunt him down he can get you some aspirin for that fever you have.”

“I don’t have a fever,” groaned Roger, but Freddie was long gone. Roger looked up at Brian who still was puzzling over him. “I’m fine, I don’t have fever.”

“Roger, the tours almost over,” said Brian. “He’s gonna go home to his wife and his son and you won’t see him every day like we do now. Maybe…say something to him.”

“Mind your business,” said Roger, massaging his temple.

“I was trying to help,” sighed Brian.

“You—You were, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” groaned Roger. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about but maybe that was the whole point. Maybe he shouldn’t be leaning in to that feeling but fighting it tooth and nail. That’s what John seemed to think anyway. John and Freddie and now Brian. “You’re right the tours ending and…I don’t think I’ll say anything honestly.”

“Why not?” Brian scoffed. “You told me you love him, why not tell him that—you know in a not-shouty way.”

“It won’t change anything,” said Roger. “I waited too long and…it’s still…difficult to be honest with myself. Might be easier if this just went away when we go back home.”

“Is that what you really want?”

“Maybe,” said Roger, knowing damn well the real answer was no.

~~~

John decided he’d skip the drinking and dancing that night and turn in early. That was fine by Roger, it was much easier to forget his troubles without John right there with him. Once he and Freddie had taken a couple shots he was back to his normal self. All grins and wandering hands as he danced with the woman who’d dragged him out to the dance floor. She was gorgeous. Thin but not too thin, tall but no too tall, her face was angular with a certain softness, her touch was light but intentional.

“Why don’t we head back?” asked Roger in her ear.

“I’d love that,” replied the woman, her lips dragged across his jaw lazily. He hurried to grab her hand and lead her out. He flagged down the car that circled the block for them and held the door open while the woman jumped in. He’d barely got out the phrase ‘back to the hotel’ for the driver before the woman had climbed in his lap and pushed her tongue into his mouth.

She hummed, her smooth, high voice filled the car and rang in Roger’s ears. Loud and obtrusive. His stomach rolled over and he pulled away quick.

“What’s the matter?” The woman ran a hand through his hair.

Roger looked at her, at her beautiful face, her kiss swollen lips, her sympathetic, concerned eyes and shook his head. “I’m fine, I think I’m getting carsick that’s all.”

“Oh,” she giggled and climbed off his lap, “now you’ve got a view of the road does that help?”

“It does, thanks,” said Roger awkwardly. He let her hands wander across his chest, over his belt, down his thigh, as they drove. He barely felt it, his mind was totally focused on the stretch of road ahead until they pulled to a stop.

He didn’t let it show, at least he hoped he didn’t, but Roger was more full of dread than he’d ever been. He faked the giggly giddiness as they hurried through the lobby, and he faked the desperate need when she kissed him in the elevator, and he lied when he whispered to her, and when he unlocked his door and told her to get up on his bed he was hoping she’d say no. When he peeled her clothes off, he tried not to look. When he stroked himself, trying to get his cock hard enough, he hoped she’d stop talking, hoped she’d let him pretend she was someone else just for the moment.

She felt good. Tight and warm, squeezing his cock just how he liked. It felt good, he knew it did, but so much of it felt awful. Every time he moved, every time she moaned or whined, every time her high, lilting voice begged him for more, his stomach turned.

“Please, shut up,” groaned Roger. The woman either didn’t hear him or, understandably, didn’t know what to make of such a request. Her voice continued echoing off the walls and deep in Roger’s bones until his erection started flagging. He knew she noticed by the way she quieted down. Roger fucked into her faster, harder, hoping to recover the night but soon any hint of hardness was gone. He sighed and rolled off her then, tucked himself back into his trousers, the night was over. “Fuck.”

“Everything okay?” said the woman a little shyly.

“No, it’s not,” sighed Roger.

“Was it something I did?” she sat up to get a better view of Roger laying next to her, and put a hand through his hair.

“No it’s not you, you’re perfect,” sighed Roger, he couldn’t help but lean into her comforting touch as she scratched his scalp lightly.

“We can still have fun,” said the woman with a suggestive smile.

Roger smirked up at her. “We could but…I…”

“It’s okay, we don’t have to,” The woman traced her finger over the bridge of Roger’s nose. “I don’t need a reason.”

“Thanks,” said Roger, his voice quieter than he meant it to be. His eyes fluttered closed as she kept running her fingertips over his nose, across his forehead, around his chin, up across his cheeks. He could feel himself dozing off and evidently she could tell as well. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead, whispered a goodnight, and let herself out.

Roger didn’t want that woman around but he didn’t like being alone, not with these thoughts especially. It was one thing for his stomach to start turning when the woman kissed him, to break out in a cold sweat when he moved in her, to have a racing anxious heart when she made any noise. It was another for his body to shut down like that on a more immediate level. To have to fight to keep a hard on, to have to remove himself so far from reality to stay turned on, to eventually lose that fight was overwhelming.

Life felt okay if he could keep the lie up, pretend he never felt anything and find a few women to get over John with. If that didn’t work, if women could no longer be a fallback to his healing and loving, then where did that leave him. He was staring down the barrel of his own truths and nature, and would do anything to be distracted. So he sat up and padded barefoot to his door. He opened it, looked both ways down the hall, and hurried down two doors to John’s room. He knocked, once, twice, and on the third knock the door disappeared out from under his knuckles.

“What do you want?” said John, not particularly cold, but not warm.

“Please let me in,” said Roger.

“Why?” John’s face softened with worry, but his hand remained tight on the door, ready to slam it at any moment.

“Just…” Roger stammered, and began a few words he couldn’t finish. The night’s anxieties built up enough that he couldn’t get them out clearly. His eyes watered, his jaw clenched, and his mind offered no outlet for it. “Just because.”

John’s brow furrowed in concern as he let the door swing all the way open and stood aside for Roger to come through. “What’s got you so shaken?”

“You got whiskey?”

“Uh, somewhere, I haven’t checked,” said John as he closed the door.

Roger ditched the idea of whiskey and sat at the edge of John’s bed, more defeated than he’d felt in years. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. He groaned, a deep aching groan. A sound of pure exhaustion. John said nothing but Roger felt the bed dip when he sat at his side.

“Long night?”

“Never ending,” said Roger. “John you fucked me all up.”

“What?” said John with a confused laugh.

Roger sat up. “You confuse me, fuck me all up. I knew what I wanted, it was so,” Roger shut his eyes tight trying to describe it, “so crystal clear in my head. It’s all turned upside down now, Deaky. I don’t know who I am anymore—I barely know my own name…You fuck me all up.”

“I know what you mean,” said John gently, quietly.

“Oh yeah?” said Roger, his shoulders still tense.

John nodded. “I have a wife and a son. You don’t think this is confusing for me too?”

“You always seemed so sure of it,” said Roger.

“I wasn’t,” said John with a laugh, “but my hopeless love for you sort of overpowered all my insecurities in a way. Didn’t care if I felt ugly, if the public found out, if Ronnie found out, I just wanted you to pay attention to me.” John joylessly laughed at himself. “Pathetic I know—”

“It’s not pathetic,” said Roger, stopping that train of thought. “And…for the record, you’re not ugly.”

“Maybe,” said John, brushing it off.

“I mean it,” Roger bumped him with his shoulder. “You think I’d switch around my sexuality for just anyone?” John chuckled so Roger doubled down. “You think any man could ruin women for me?”

“Ruin?” said John, shyly. “How’d’you mean?”

“How’d you think?” whispered Roger. John’s cheeks flushed, just a bit. Roger loved how easily he blushed.

“Well…didn’t mean to,” said John under his breath.

“How could you _not,_ ” said Roger. “You’re _John Deacon._ Women are fighting over you every night.”

“More of them are on you and Brian,” said John with an eye roll.

“God knows why.” Roger scooted closer to him. “John, you’re gorgeous.”

“You think?” said John, eyeing Roger curiously. As if Roger’s answer would say more about Roger than it would about John.

“Yes,” said Roger, his eyes locked on John’s. “I really do.”

John’s breath hitched, his cheeks grew a bit pinker, and Roger just couldn’t resist it. He leaned in and pressed his lips to John’s. Sloppy from the whiskey, graceless, but needy. His hand wrapped around John’s waist as he worked John’s tight jaw open and ran his tongue against his. He could hear him moan, could feel the gentle humming vibration on his tongue, and couldn’t wait to get more of it.

“Ah,” sighed John as he leaned back and pulled clear away from Roger. Roger stared back, a little dazed, a little embarrassed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“Why?” said Roger, too tired to be mincing words.

“Roger,” John shook his head solemnly, “I love you, you know that I do but…I can’t be with you if this is a secret.”

“Then I’ll tell the world,” said Roger.

“What?” said John.

“I’ll tell everyone, it won’t be a secret. John, if that’s what you need from me then I’ll do it, in a heartbeat,” said Roger.

“Rog…” John looked at him with eyes full of pity, “do you want to do that?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Don’t tell everyone for my sake. If you’re going to say anything it should be for your own peace of mind. If you’re not ready to do that, I don’t blame you and I don’t resent you for it. But I also can’t be with you if it means our whole life is a secret.” John took his hand and threaded his fingers between Roger’s. He ran his thumb over the back of Roger’s hand, Roger did the same to him. “Do you think you’re ready to do that?”

Roger focused intensely on the comfort, the relief of John’s hand in his own. His anxieties were relaxed away, his worries all erased with each stroke of his thumb against Roger’s skin. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

John was silent for a few moments, mulling that answer over in his own head. Roger did the same.

“I like this,” said John, breaking the calm quiet.

“Like what?”

“I like you talking to me,” said John with a grin. “Not just goofing around or shoving your tongue down my throat but… _talking_. Although I do like those other things.”

Roger smirked and rested his shoulder against John’s. “Sorry it took me so long.”

“That’s okay,” said John, quietly, almost inaudible. He leaned heavier against Roger. His free hand trailed up Roger’s forearm, tracing light patterns against his skin that could’ve lulled Roger to sleep if he let them. He wondered if John would let him stay the night. Wondered if he could just lie down and let John play with his hair, run his fingertips over his skin in those same light little patterns until he was asleep.

“Can I stay here?” said Roger, grateful to have the whiskey still in him, giving him the courage to ask.

“I wish you could,” said John. “It’d hurt too much. To have you here but…not really have you. I’m sorry.”

“No—no, I get it,” said Roger. “Shouldn’t’ve asked.”

“Maybe it’s better like this? Maybe if we were together the band would break up or…I don’t know, something else equally catastrophic,” said John, trying to cheer Roger up, “maybe this is a good thing.”

Roger turned to look at him. “You really think so?”

“I don’t know,” said John.

Roger looked at him. John looked back at him with all the beauty in the world. Why was he letting fear get in the way of what he knew to be true. It’d never felt more clear to him in that moment either. He was as in love as a man could get and he was willing to throw it away in the name of saving face. He’d sacrifice his own happiness for the comfort of others. It just didn’t sound like him, didn’t sound in his nature, though none of this really sounded in his nature.

“I guess I should sleep,” said Roger.

“Okay,” said John.

John walked him to the door and swung it open for him. Roger muttered a thanks and a goodnight before meandering back down the hall to his own room.

~~~

They next morning was spent hitting a few tourist attractions, though none that Roger could really invest in, and getting lunch together as a band. And in those moments, the quiet moments of their same, goofy camaraderie, Roger wondered why he was ever scared to tell any of them. Why he would dare let that fear of telling his close friends, and his more distant friends, ruin what he could have with John. What he so badly wanted, so desperately craved from him.

He couldn’t help think of it as his hair was styled for him backstage, about ten minutes before they went on. Normally he was quite a tenderhead, quite paranoid about anyone tugging to hard and pulling his hair clear out, but for the moment he was buzzing with anxiety watching John button his shirt up. Being across the room from him instead of right by his side was torture, but when the tour ended things could only get worse, he could only get further from him and for what. For nothing. For a bit of dignity he mistakenly thought he’d lose? To fall back on a self image he was confident in but one that was ultimately a lie? No it wasn’t fucking worth that.

“Guys,” croaked Roger, his heart pounding.

“Yeah?” said Freddie not looking away from his own reflection.

“I…I’m one of those,” said Roger. His hair stylist tugged a lock of his hair by mistake but he didn’t care to whine about it.

“Those what’s?” said Brian. Roger could see through the mirror Brian was far more focused on tearing at his callouses than he was with Roger’s words.

“One of those…those gay people,” said Roger. His hairstylist working behind him paused for a moment. Roger eyed Brian and John in the mirror, both looking at him with blank but intense faces. He looked over to his left, at Freddie sitting at the vanity seat next to his own. Freddie also looked rather blank.

“Well…yes, we all know that,” said Freddie with a laugh.

“I didn’t,” interjected Paul.

“Fuck off,” spat Roger.

“I didn’t,” muttered his hairstylist as he sprayed more hairspray uselessly in Roger’s hair. Every night he got drenched in his own sweat, a little hairspray never lasted longer than half the show.

“I knew,” said Brian.

“Did you?” said Freddie, turning in his seat to look at him. Roger’s hairstylist muttered that his hair was done and that he’d be outside if he needed anything more. For a moment Roger panicked about sending him out amongst the roadies to gossip and spread the news. But he stopped himself, that was the whole point. He knew his hair stylist wouldn’t say a word but he didn’t want to be afraid if he did. He was however grateful that Freddie asked Paul to go out with him.

“You both knew?” said John, sitting up in his chair a bit.

“Yes, darling,” said Freddie cooly.

“Then I guess you all know that I knew,” John’s face grew a bit red, he wouldn’t look anyone in the eye.

“That’s not the point,” said Roger. He turned around in his seat to address them all. “It’s out in the open. It’s not a secret, I’m not hiding it anymore.”

“It’s not a secret beyond these four walls either?” asked Brian earnestly. “Fine if it is but—”

“I don’t care who knows,” said Roger, his hands trembled as they clutched the back of his chair. “I’m not going to take Freddie’s mic on stage and make a big announcement but I don’t care who knows.”

“Are you sure?” Freddie covered Roger’s shaking hand with his own.

“Yes,” insisted Roger.

“Wait so,” Brian sighed, “am I the only straight one?”

“Yes, you are,” said John with a laugh. “Though maybe you should’ve seen it coming when we named the band Queen.”

“Yes, maybe I should’ve,” laughed Brian, his grin wide.

“Well, congratulations, I guess? Rog?” said Freddie awkwardly. “I’m not sure what to award someone in this situation.”

“I’ll take the congratulations,” said Roger with a grin he didn’t bother hiding. He’d only told a few people, most of whom already knew, but even then a great, heavy weight felt lifted off his chest. A weight he hadn’t realised was there until it was gone and he could breathe again.

“John,” said Brian a bit quieter, “when we start the whole ‘It’s Late’ lead in I was thinking you could do something more like this,” Brian sang a bassline under his breath. Roger turned back around in his chair when he heard John groan and begin to ask what the hell Brian meant.

“So,” said Freddie, quiet and discreet enough for the conversation to be just between them and the mirrors, “what does this mean for,” Freddie tilted his head towards John.

“I don’t know,” said Roger. “But nothing would’ve happened if I stayed all shut up.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” said Freddie, his smile so genuine and loving that, had Roger been a more sentimental person, his eyes would’ve welled up. But too much adrenaline was pulsing through him for that. “Remember that night I forced my way into your apartment, made you play scrabble all night?”

“I do,” Roger stopped fussing with his hair, “I’m…well…thankful that you were there. I didn’t know how bad I needed it.”

“You never do,” said Freddie. “You’ve got no idea when you need help, thank your lucky stars I can see it a mile away.”

“I will, I have.”

Freddie turned to Roger, a very serious look painted on his face as silent set in between them. Roger wondered if he’d go into a monologue of how proud he was or something equally loving and embarrassing. Freddie did them all the time for the smallest of things, Roger couldn’t imagine the speech he must’ve been writing in his head for _this._

“Now that we’re both faggots, can I put eyeliner on you?” asked Freddie, as sincere as ever. Roger burst out into laughter. Freddie joined him. “Well can I?!”

“Sure!” said Roger, through his croaking laughter, “sure, yes, go for it, ’now that we’re both faggots’.”

“YES!” screamed Freddie as he frantically pawed his makeup bag for his eyeliner.

In the end Brian held Roger’s head still while Freddie put the eyeliner on. John, though the barely stifled chuckles muttered a few ‘I told you so’s that Freddie shushed every time. They called five minutes left before they walked on, a few seconds later Freddie announced he’d finished with Roger, his masterpiece.

Roger looked in the mirror and saw Freddie’s work. His lashes looked thicker, he’d given him the smallest little wing he’d ever seen, something he’d probably sweat off in the first twenty minutes of the show. He wasn’t sure why he expected such a grand, total transformation from a swipe of eyeliner, he knew that Freddie didn’t change that much with a bit of makeup, but there was something comforting about seeing himself in the mirror. How he’d always known himself just a little step to the right, a little more open.

“I like it,” said John behind him.

“Thank you,” said Roger, quieter than he’d meant to be as he looked up at John through the mirror.

“Please _please_ let me add a little blusher,” said Freddie as he rifled through his bag.

“I’ll just sweat it right off,” said Roger dismissively.

“He’s right, said Brian. “Plus, you’ve seen how red in the face he gets during a show, you wouldn’t want to add to it.”

“Hey,” Roger lazily slapped Brian’s stomach.

Their manager called three minutes and they all finished pulling their stage clothes together. Roger just needed to slip his shoes on, Freddie needed the three of them to help slip his leotard on in a hurry. They rushed on stage and Roger pounded out his drumbeats as enthusiastically as ever. He’d never felt so light behind the kit. Absolutely nothing stressed him, nothing worried him, it was just him and his drums, and his friends.

He smiled wide and sang along when Freddie hopped up on the risers. When Brian waved during a drum solo he nearly fell off beat trying to wave back. And when John got up and did his strange jerky little dance on his drum riser he wanted to get up and join him. And when John stopped for a moment, and looked at him through his cymbals, serious and little shy, Roger wanted to whisk him away right then and there.

~~~

They’d worn themselves out that show. They put out so much extra flair, all responding to the power Roger put into his kit as he rode the high of his confession. By the time they walked off stage they were exhausted enough that Paul had their cars sent back to the hotels without asking if anyone was going out. Roger didn’t care, he was in no mood to go out. When his car pulled into the hotel he went straight up to shower off the sweat from the show.

He’d only just got through with towel drying his hair when he heard a knock at his door.

“Rog!” screamed Freddie.

“What is it?!” called back Roger as he wrapped his towel around his waist.

“Paul and I wanted to get a drink, Brian’s tagging along, you’re welcome to join as well,” said Freddie. “I know you must be worn from tonight, I won’t take offense if you stay in.”

“I am worn,” laughed Roger. “I’m going to order up a dessert and go to bed, Fred. But thanks for the invite.”

“Suit yourself—have a good night, Rog!” said Freddie.

“You too, Fred,” said Roger, too quiet for Freddie to hear.

He tugged on some boxer shorts, he only ever slept in them and could never quite remember how he’d got so many. He ran a brush through his tangled hair and winced every time he caught a knot as if he weren’t the one doing it. And he wondered if John would come to him. If his little declaration backstage wasn’t enough for him, then Roger would just have to take no for an answer. He couldn’t give him anything more than that, it wasn’t in his nature to go around telling everyone he met, and he’d need more time to tell his family. If John didn’t want him then, then he might as well let it lie.

A knock landed on his door. Roger froze for a moment, knowing who it must be but in a state of disbelief. “Freddie?”

“Not Freddie,” replied John.

Roger rushed to the door and flung it open with a desperation he didn’t mind John seeing. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”

John stepped into his room. “Well I did.” He grinned and let the door close behind him. “That was impressive what you did back there.”

“You think?” said Roger with a breathy, unsure laugh. John’s hand pressed against Roger’s chest, his fingers trembling. “Oh Deaky.” Roger ran a hand through John’s hair, hoping to settle his nerves some. “I love you. I’m sorry when I first told you I was hysterically screaming it down a hall—” John laughed, “but I do love you.”

“I love you too,” breathed John. “You looked good tonight. Really…good.”

Roger couldn’t help smile at John’s attempt at small talk, his attempt to lead the conversation where they both knew they wanted it to end up. He skipped the formalities and went straight to kissing him. John squeaked when he did but was quick to wrap his arms around Roger, to deepen the kiss, to press his hips against him.

“Come on,” said Roger, pulling away when he couldn’t take it anymore. He led John to the bed. There was still tension between them as John tugged his shoes off, an awkward air as neither of them had ever done this sober, but that quickly went away and was replaced with giggles as Roger tried to tug John’s trousers off and ended up tugging him across the bed. John smirks kept up as Roger tossed his trousers as far away as he could.

Roger climbed up on to the bed and let John’s legs wrap around him as he did. He helped John unbutton his shirt, and kissed every inch of his chest once all the fabric was out of the way. He took his time, take care to give each inch of John’s perfect body attention. Roger’s hands ran up and down him as his mouth left marks everywhere he could.

“C’mon Roger,” whispered John, “don’t tease.”

Roger paid him no mind but trailed his kissed lower. Biting at John’s soft belly and linger there as his hands freed John’s aching cock from his pants. John whined and sighed deep as Roger’s mouth moved lower still, as his tongue circled the head of his cock, as his mouth accepted as much of him as he could take, as his hand stroked him.

“Fuck, Rog,” John got a handful of his hair as Roger worked his cock. He knew he was no good at it, he’d only ever had a cock in his mouth once before and he was much more relaxed then than he was now. But he knew John didn’t care. Once his jaw began to ache he pulled off his cock and left one last wet kiss to his head. “Please,” breathed John. “Please.”

He couldn’t let John beg so fruitlessly. So he was quick to get the lube, quick to work his fingers into him, quick to find that spot in John that made his back arch so beautifully. And he was quick to replace his fingers with his cock. John shut his eyes and clutched the sheets with one hand, scratched Roger’s back with the other as he sank into him.

“You look gorgeous like this,” said Roger. He pressed a kiss to John’s furrowed brow as they both waited for the initial pain to ebb away.

“Move,” sighed John, and Roger did. John’s legs tightened around Roger’s hips, his nails dug a little deeper into Roger’s back. Roger couldn’t get enough. He had it. He had what he wanted. It’d taken him so long to find it but John was there. And John loved him back, and John took his cock so well, and whispered how good it felt, how much he loved him in Roger’s ear. In that moment, with John’s tight heat enveloping him so fully, his moans and cries of his name punctuating every scratch on his back every twitch of his thighs, Roger wondered why he was so scared of this. So terrified to admit that this, the best he’d ever felt with anyone, the closest he’d ever felt to anyone, was something he liked.

“I’m close,” said Roger.

“Wait for me,” said John between a few lazy kisses as he stroked his cock with an added desperation. John got himself off quick, his orgasm sneaking up on him too as his whole body rode the high. The tight contracting around Roger’s cock as John wrung out the last few second of his orgasm sent Roger over the edge. He drilled deeper into John and didn’t worry about being quiet as he filled him.

“Fuck,” panted Roger, not having caught his breath.

“Fuck,” repeated John as he pulled him down and pushed his tongue deep into his mouth. Roger hummed, pulling away only to take in a few deep breaths as his whole body came down. John moaned, shallow and light, when Roger pulled out. He fell to John’s side but was quick to drape his legs dramatically over John’s and to wrap an arm around his waist. “Don’t get to comfortable, I need to rinse off.”

“Not yet though,” mumbled Roger. He kissed John’s temple and held him a little tighter. John laid there, quiet, and reached over to run his fingers across Roger’s hip, up his back, anywhere he could reach. Roger leaned into the touch and let his eyes slip closed.

“No, no sleeping,” chided John, “I need to rinse off.”

Roger whined as he heaved himself off of the bed and watched him disappear into the bathroom. He thought about staying but ultimately got up to join him. The hot water did them both some good. Roger scrunched John’s hair in a towel for him while John brushed his teeth with the hotel brand toothbrush. Roger had always been too afraid to use those but John didn’t mind it.

He leant him something to sleep in and turned down his bed for them while John turned out the few lamps left on. Roger slid into bed and John joined him. No shyness this time, no questions about whether or not he should hold John, no wondering if John wanted to be there, no wondering if he wanted John to be there. As soon as John was under the covers, Roger was wrapped tight around him.

“Will you tell Veronica?” said Roger, quiet, hoping maybe the darkness would drown it out.

“Soon as we’re home,” said John. “It should be in person. But I think she has an idea already.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because,” said John with a chuckle, “when we were first dating, she and I, I had too much to drink and told her I had the biggest crush on you.”

“You didn’t.” Roger smiled ear to ear at the thought of Deaky, so young and shy, feeling all that for him, feeling it so strong he could barely keep it in.

“I did,” John groaned at the memory. “She was very nice about it, obviously.”

“Maybe she’ll be nice about it again,” said Roger hopefully.

“Well, she deserves to yell and throw a few things. But knowing her, she won’t.”

A silence filled the room as they both considered how it would be when they got back. How telling John’s wife would be, how a divorce would be, if it were even possible. Roger wondered if he ought to tell his parents before the press told them for him. He wondered how that might go. It all made his stomach turn with anxiety thinking of it. But it was worth it. For John, anything was worth it.

“I love you,” said Roger.

“Love you too,” said John, his voice sounded sleepy. Roger pulled him in closer and John held on to him just that little bit tighter.

~~~

“Roger,” hummed John, his fingers played with his hair. Roger clung to him tighter. “Wake up.”

“No,” grumbled Roger, clinging to him tighter still and burying his face in John’s chest.

“You’ve hit the snooze on me four times now,” said John. The rise and fall of his chest when he laughed had Roger’s squished up face grinning.

“Four times?” said Roger. “I don’t remember that.”

“You didn’t seem fully awake,” said John. “But you are now so get up.” Roger whined pathetically and squeezed John tighter still. “C’mon, love, we’ll be late.”

Roger sat up. “What’d you call me?”

“Oh,” John blushed. “Don’t like that one?”

“I love it,” said Roger with a grin. “Love.”

“We need to get up,” said John, still blushing with an embarrassed smile. He rolled out of bed despite Roger’s protests and headed for the bathroom.

“Do you need to pack your room up?” said Roger as he sat up in bed and stretched out every muscle in his body.

“I did that last night,” said John. “I sort of hoped I’d be staying over here.”

“You slut!” teased Roger.

They got ready together in a comfortable silence, letting the radio play the morning news. All local, all updates they didn’t care about as they tugged on clothes and shoved all of Roger’s strewn about belongings back into his bag. Once that was through they headed to John’s room to let him put on fresh clothes and grab his bags before they meandered down to the first floor. One of the roadies took their bags as they found their way to their complimentary breakfast.

The hotel was nice enough that they didn’t get many stares as they crossed the dining room to the back booth with Brian and Freddie.

“Morning,” said Roger, avoiding everyone’s gaze. He slipped into the booth next to Freddie. John slid in on the other side by Brian.

“Morning,” replied Freddie.

A waitress came by to pour them both some black coffee and take their orders. That was the only break in the silence between the four of them and when she left the quiet returned.

“Well…” said Brian cutting the tension, “I guess congratulations? Again?”

“What?” said Roger.

Brian gestured wildly as he stammered. “You came down together I thought—”

“ _Brian_ ,” groaned Roger with the air of an embarrassed teenager.

“We were supposed to ignore it?” Brian looked to Freddie for guidance.

“You’re so painfully heterosexual,” said Freddie with a playful pinch to his cheek.

“It’s out there now,” said John with a laugh, “but it doesn’t need to be a band meeting.”

“It sounds to me like Brian wants the gory details,” said Freddie with a wink.

“That’s not funny,” laughed Brian.

“He may be joining the winning team after all,” said Freddie.

After a fair amount of ribbing Brian, they finished their breakfasts and got in their bus. Freddie demanded a ‘family’ game of scrabble before Brian set about finishing off the book he’d started and Freddie got settled in for a nap after an undoubtedly long night. Roger laid in John’s lap, across the seat in the back, and let him fiddle with his hair, trace the features of his face, tell him long winding stories. Not bothering to notice if anyone, not Paul, not Crystal, not their tour manager, was looking. He stayed focused on John and how bright, how beautiful his smile was.


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! It's been a long time since I published the last chapter, but I did want to do an epilogue very much so I'm sorry it was so late but I had a lot of fun with it! I hope you have fun reading it! Please leave a comment if you do !! And I'm about to post the last chapters of my current two fics so if you like this you may like those <33

“How about this’n?” Roger handed off another flower from John’s garden to little Robert. Roger held him on his hip and passed off the soft-petaled flowers to him until he ripped them all up and needed another. Robert didn’t talk much yet, apparently John was the same way as a child. Able to talk but not much of a conversationalist. Roger didn’t mind, he didn’t need conversation right then. “Or this’n?”

He looked over his shoulder, trying to glimpse John and Veronica through the french doors. John did as promised and told Veronica the night he got back from tour that things had changed. That he’d changed anyway. It’d been nearly three months since then and Roger finally had the courage up to go see Robert again. Where Roger used to drop by uninvited to see Robert, or John, or even Veronica, he now had to be told to come by, had to be begged by John to watch Robert while he and Veronica had very difficult conversations with their lawyer. The lawyer they shared. Some kind of amicable divorce proceeding. A quick divvy and a promise of alimony or payments of some sort, and no hard feelings. On the surface anyway.

“You know,” said Roger while Robert’s chubby hands tore up another flower, “you’re quite lucky. Even if they are splitting, they both still love you. More than I ever got, and my parents didn’t even split.”

Robert responded with a tug on Roger’s hair.

“Ah—ah—” Roger reached for another flower, “this instead, darling.”

Roger wondered if John told the lawyer. Wondered, if the lawyer was sympathetic, whether or not he’d get some sort of right to Robert. He didn’t expect guardianship or custody, but he knew he’d like to be a little more than a friend of the family. Though, even that might’ve been too lofty in Veronica’s eyes.

She took it well, according to John. Roger hadn’t ever seen her, spoken to her until earlier when John told him to take Robert out back in the garden and he caught her eye on the way out. She didn’t seem happy. Though who would be happy to find out the life they planned was with the wrong person. It was a tough thing to fault her for.

“Rog!” called John from the back door, “time to head out.”

Roger hurried over with Robert on his hip and set him down just outside the door, let him toddle to John who heaved him off the ground in an instant. He was chatty with John. John grinned at him and asked if he’d fun with ‘uncle Roger’, and Robert went on and on in his garbled language. Roger couldn’t help but feel jealous. John set Robert down and told him to find his mum just in the other room.

“Gotten so big,” said Roger.

“Doesn’t show signs of stopping,” laughed John.

“Are you two leaving?” called Veronica from the dining room, more of a command than a question.

“On our way out now,” replied John as he ushered Roger inside.

Roger said a quiet goodbye to Robert, and gave an uncomfortable wave to Veronica. Veronica replied with a tightened lip, Robert replied with ‘bye Bobber’. He’d long ago forgone trying to call Roger ‘uncle Roger’ and moved right on through to Bobber. Which Roger found to be both endearing and passive aggressive considering he pronounced Freddie and Brian just fine. John gave them each a kiss on the cheek before hurrying to the front door.

“I know he can say his R’s he’s doing it on purpose,” said Roger with a laugh on their way out to the car.

“How Machiavellian of him,” teased John with a quickly fading smile. Roger reached for his hand but pulled away before he made contact. John didn’t like to be too close around Veronica.

“So what’s the plan?” said Roger. “Y’know with the lawyer and the…”

“Great big mess mostly,” replied John with a tired sigh.

“Oi!” called Veronica from the front door. John and Roger whipped around. “Left your keys!”

Roger patted his pockets despite Veronica dangling the keys from her finger. Part of him hoped that if he kept searching himself for the keys, he’d find them and they wouldn’t have to say another word to Veronica. But as she hurried out to meet them at the car he got less and less confident that they’d slip out without any more tense conversation.

Roger took a step away as she handed John the bundle of his keys. After so many years of spending his free time lazing around the Deacon household, becoming inseparably close to everyone in it, he couldn’t help feel guilty, ashamed even that he’d ruined it. He took steps back from Veronica, towards the car, thinking she’d rather he weren’t there while she said another quick goodbye to her soon-to-be-ex husband. He stood at the driver’s side door and watched as Veronica hugged John tight enough to break him.

“And Rog,” said Veronica, talking just loud enough for him to hear, “thanks for coming by.”

“Oh—well—thanks for letting me,” replied Roger, choking on his own words. “I’ve missed you lot.”

“Us too,” said Veronica with a bit less conviction. John whispered something to her, hugged her tightly once more, and waved goodbyes as she started back up to the front door.

“Did she mean that?” said Roger once they were in the privacy of the car and he had the engine running.

“Mean what?” said John.

Roger pulled out into the road. “She said she’s missed me?”

“She has,” said John. “Always does.” He leant back in his seat, sinking into the leather. “I’m sure she also misses the days when you weren’t fucking her husband but she still likes you. Robert does too.”

“She’s a bigger man than me,” laughed Roger. “If you started fucking her again I can’t say I’d try to extend any olive branches.”

“That’s just the kind of person she is, she’s always been. And y’know, she got some warning, got a couple months to mend before she saw you again.”

“Drunkenly telling her you had a crush on me back in 1971 or whatever does not constitute ‘warning’,” said Roger, only half teasing.

“No,” John sighed, “but y’know she’s known me a long while, she didn’t always need it said to her to pick up on everything.”

“I doubt she just ‘guessed’ that we’d been fucking,” Roger pushed in his cigarette lighter and anxiously waited for it to heat up.

“Fucking?” said John.

“What?” Roger turned to him. “Don’t make me call it ‘making love’, I—” he faked a gag.

“God that phrase sounds so horrible coming from you,” said John with a shiver. “I only meant we didn’t exactly have a standing appointment. I wasn’t very careful with my feelings, and it wasn’t as if we were in the throes of an affair I was trying to hide, I was coming to grips with it, I think she must’ve seen it.”

“Maybe.” Roger hoped that was true. Hoped the poor woman had hints along the way. But he felt fairly confident she didn’t pick up on any uncovered emotion John didn’t bother to hide from her. It was something most wives weren’t looking for. Before he got too lost in thought, John covered Roger’s hand on the gear shift, ran his thumb across his wrist.

“Either way, she’s taken it well,” said John.

“She really has,” it felt patronising coming from Roger, he cringed at his own words.

“Speaking of people taking things well,” said John in that tone he always used when the subject came up, “I bet your mum and sister would like a call.”

“It’s not time,” said Roger. He’d made plans to tell them when he came back from tour, same as John telling Veronica. He handed out their lavish and trinket-y gifts from tour for them, hoping to soften the blow, but when it came time to say the actual words he stopped short.

“Rog, when is time,” said John. “I don’t care for my own sake, I’ll pretend to be living with you because of the divorce or whatever lie you’d like to tell them but, for your own sake.”

“I don’t know,” Roger flicked on the indicator. “Sounds silly, I’m grown and out of the house but, I’m worried like a teenager.”

“It’s not silly,” John squeezed his hand a bit tighter. “Not silly at all, Rog.”

~~~

“I’ve got something really _out there_ ,” said Freddie over lunch. He hoped up out of his chair and sat in the corner of the room at his upright piano. Brian, Roger, and John all watched and waited patiently for the show. He played a note or two then added, “well it’s really not for the piano, is it.”

“We wouldn’t know,” said Brian with a grin.

“Laugh all you like, but once this makes it out of my head it’ll sound fantastic,” Freddie huffed back to his chair. Freddie enjoyed dinner, lunch, the occasional brunch, if Brian could wake up, with the four of them more often than they would’ve liked. It felt like an obligation but not so much in a negative way. More in a sibling way. Appeasing the one that kept them all together and secretly enjoying it through the complaints. His personal chef cooked them lunch, all their favourites as always and they’d got the conversation circled over to their next album. All four had a few ideas up their sleeves, but Freddie’s were always the strangest.

“How long until it’s out of your head?” said Roger.

“How should I know,” said Freddie with a shrug. “Maybe I’ll fiddle with it tonight, see if I can’t put it to piano—It’s just got a certain mood I need to capture.”

“What mood is that?” said John with a grin.

“Grandeur,” said Freddie with a dramatic wave of his hands.

“Is that a mood?” laughed Brian.

“It is now, darling.”

“Well,” John stood from the table, “this has been enlightening, but I’ve got to meet Ronnie soon so I’ll be off.”

“Let me see you out—” began Freddie.

“I can handle it,” said John, his smile still wide, “I won’t get lost.” He squeezed Roger’s shoulder and muttered a quick goodbye. Roger made him promise to say hello to Veronica and Robert for him. He promised without looking back and seconds later Freddie’s enormous front door swung open.

Freddie and Brian were quiet about it. They knew of the divorce, they obviously knew why it’d come to pass, but they didn’t pry, didn’t ask how it was going, didn’t ask how everyone was feeling about it. But he knew they wanted to, and on some level he wished they’d just cave and start battering him with intrusive questions he could answer or ignore at his leisure, something to get the stress of it all out.

“What’s the face for?” said Freddie.

Roger snapped out of his daydream. “No face, just thinking.”

“Hm,” said Freddie, looking him up and down.

“I don’t mean to pry but you asked him to say hello to them all?” said Brian with a cocked head.

“ _Brian_ ,” chided Freddie, “got no manners have you?”

“It’s all right,” said Roger with an quiet laugh, mostly to break up the tension. “Well—Obviously Robert’s not holding anything against me, being two and a half ‘nd all. But Veronica also seems…strangely…okay?”

“Okay?” said Freddie, his eyes boring into Roger like he might read his mind if he stared long enough.

“I mean—she’s devastated but, she’s not being unkind. She thanked me for coming last time I was there. Don’t know what it all means but if she’s going to be civil, nice even, I’m returning the favour.”

“Well,” Brian lifted his tea cup and rested his elbows on the table, “maybe she’s wrapped her head around the fact that it was inevitable. If not you, someone else.”

“I suppose.”

“How’s your mum taken it, I didn’t want to intrude but since we’re chatting now,” said Freddie pointedly looking at Brian.

“Oh, about that,” Roger nervously traced his thumb over the handle of the teacup Freddie was forcing him to drink his coffee out of, “I didn’t actually…tell her.”

“When were you supposed to tell her?” said Brian, looking between Freddie and Roger frantically.

“When we got back from tour,” said Freddie. “He and I went shopping for his mum and sister so he could give them these great big boxes of name brand everything to soften the blow.”

“Did it work?” said Brian.

“I just told you I never said anything,” snapped Roger. Brian recoiled and Roger rolled his eyes.

“No harm in not telling your parents,” said Freddie, “god knows it’ll be a cold day in hell before they hear from me on this subject.”

“That’s fine for you but I _want_ them to know,” Roger sighed and sat back in his chair. “If only I could tell them all about John and sort of…skip over what that means about me. This would all be so much easier.”

“I know the feeling,” said Freddie, sounding just as forlorn.

“I don’t,” added Brian awkwardly.

“We know you don’t,” said Roger with a pat on Brian’s shoulder and a chuckle.

“Why don’t you tell Clare first, hm?” said Freddie, he looked to Brian for confirmation as if Brian had any expertise in the field. “You know she’ll be fine with it.”

“Will she?” said Roger, sitting up. “Would Kash?”

“Yes,” Freddie laughed but the smile faded from his face in an instant.

“You’ve told Kash?”

“Well, not in the most literal sense—”

“So you know fuck all what you’re talking about here—”

“Kash is much younger than Clare, it’s too much of a burden—”

“Oh please, she’s not that young—”

“Kash doesn’t need that on her plate, and that’s not what we’re fucking talking about—”

“If you’re so eager to go confessing sins to our sisters, I think it’s only fair you tell Kash before preaching about how fucking easy it is—”

“Real mature, Rog, that’s real mature—”

“Boys!” screamed Brian overtop them both. Freddie crossed his arms tight, Roger gripped the table tighter. “Y’know,” said Brian tentatively, trying to let the tension peter out. Normally Freddie made the peace between them all but with this subject he and Roger could really get under each other’s skin. “I do think Fred’s right with this one.”

“Oh well you’re obviously the expert here,” spat Roger.

“Rog, she’s your sister,” said Brian with a laugh.

“What would you know about sisters,” said Roger.

“Be nice,” said Freddie in his more parental tone.

“ _Be nice_ ,” repeated Roger in a mocking tone.

“I do think Clare will be fine to know,” said Brian. “She’s not some old fashioned grannie who’s never heard of such a thing.”

“Fuck off—” began Roger.

“And you did say when you told us four that you didn’t care who knew, and didn’t want it to be a big secret so…” Brian’s voice trailed off along with the confidence behind it.

“It’s not fucking easy to tell your fucking family shit like that, why’s that such a difficult concept for you to choke down,” spat Roger. “Sure, I don’t panic if some nobody roadie finds out but family is a much bigger deal.”

“I think you’re making excuses,” said Freddie.

“Oh am I?” said Roger with a roll of his eyes. He sat for only a few moments more, in the tense silence around the table, before muttering ‘fuck this’ to no one in particular and making as much noise as he could storming out.

~~~

“I really don’t think she’ll do any of that—we’ve got the same lawyer,” said John into the phone as he poured himself a second cup of coffee. Roger had just slunk down from their bedroom to get his first. He was never hungry in the mornings the way John was, not naturally anyway. But after so long living together, he’d got used to waking up and fumbling around the kitchen for something to nibble while John ate.

“Who is it?” mouthed Roger as his sleep-weakened hands reached for a mug.

“Miami,” mouthed John in response. “Well—Well yes, I know that, but we’ve got a son together, we’re sharing custody, she’s not going to get petty like that, not in her nature or her best interest.”

Roger sat at the breakfast table and watched John sip his coffee with the phone to his ear across the way.

“It’s not really gossip if it’s true, I _did_ move out,” John caught Roger’s eye and grinned. “I’m staying with er,” John looked back at Roger, almost asking for approval before he added, “I’m staying at Roger’s, y’know for the time being.”

“You gonna leave me Deaks?” teased Roger, just quiet enough that he couldn’t be heard on the other end of the call. Just loud enough for John to scold him.

“I’ll still be there, I’m not so swamped—yes...yes, thank you, it’s—yes, thank you, yes, it’s…thank you,” John rolled his eyes, “thank you, yes, yes, thank—yes, see you then, goodbye.” He slammed the phone back on the hook.

“What’re you thanking him for?” said Roger, his eyes on the paper John had disassembled on the table.

“Condolences,” groaned John as he flopped the chair by Roger. “I’m sick of getting condolences.”

“Why should you be sick of it?” Roger made a point of folding the paper along its crease before settling it in front of him. John had a habit of folding it all willy nilly which Roger constantly reminded him disturbed the flow of his reading. “It’s a hard thing to go through and people hope you’re doing okay.”

“I know,” said John, a little irritated. “It’s kind but, this feels as if I’ve run someone over with my car and now everyone and their mother are calling to say this must be difficult for me.”

“It’s not like that,” said Roger, quick.

“She didn’t do anything wrong—”

“Neither did you—”

“I fucked you—”

“Because you’re gay,” laughed Roger, “you can’t help that. Veronica knows that too. You can stop the self-flaeggelation.”

John said nothing, just picked up a section of the paper blindly and folded it at an angle, crumpling the corner in his grip. Roger couldn’t help when he got like that. He was too close to the situation in John’s eyes to give him any objectivity on how guilty he ought to feel. Any comfort he tried to give John felt self-serving and insincere.

“What are you going to see Miami at?” said Roger.

“Hm?” John broke from his blank stare at the smudged newsprint.

“You said you’d ‘see him there’?”

“Oh—band meeting next week,” said John. “Shouldn’t you know that?”

“Why should I? I’ve got you to tell me,” said Roger with a grin. John grinned back, a little half hearted, a little tired, but grinning all the same. “Why don’t we go out to dinner somewhere?”

“Be serious,” sighed John.

“I am,” said Roger.

“You know we can’t do that.” John rubbed his face tiredly. Roger had a fear of being seen together too often, of gossip columns running amok with whatever version of the truth sold more papers and getting calls from his mum and sister asking him to clear it all up. John had a fear of being seen together too often and complicating Veronica’s life even further. They’d come to an agreement that nights in were more their speed, at least for the time being.

“Just one night. I used to go out to dinner with Freddie all the time, never once made headlines,” said Roger. He saw a glimmer of excitement in John’s eye, a hesitant yes on the tip of his tongue. “We can go someplace cheap, nothing too eye catching. Maybe after that big meeting you’ve got with Ronnie in a few days, something to wind you down? It’ll be fun— _much needed_ fun.”

John stared for a second, and Roger held his breath until he finally added, “where did you have in mind?”

~~~

In the end Roger chose a steakhouse he used to daydream about being able to afford. By his current standards it was cheap, but the mere mention of it’s name brought him back to the days when he and Freddie were scraping together change for cans of whatever looked the most filling at the market, usually denting the cans themselves to get a discount.

They sat in the back, celebrity status made that almost mandatory, but it was nice, comfortable, to sit a little too far apart in the darker corner of the dining room, letting their knees touch under the table, as shy as they’d been with each other back in their early days, but fun, an adventure in it’s own rite. And for the life of him, Roger didn’t know how he’d gone on in the days when being so distant, so shy around John wasn’t just a performance in a restaurant but his life. How he’d managed to keep his head above water when reaching for John’s hand was still taboo.

Once they’d paid, Roger was out like a flash, hurrying the valet along while John sauntered his way out and tugged his jacket on a bit tighter.

“What’s the rush?” said John, shifting his knees in the cold air.

“I miss you,” said Roger with a laugh, hoping to cover the vulnerability of his words. Before John could respond, Roger’s car was brought up to the port and the keys were handed off. Roger tipped more than he planned but didn’t care enough to correct it. He hurried John along and pulled out as quick as the engine would let him.

“Jesus, Rog,” laughed John, his hand tight around his door handle.

“Sorry,” laughed Roger, not sorry in the slightest. He reached across the console, took John’s hand and guided it onto the gear shift where it normally sat, waiting to shift when Roger asked him. Then Roger covered his hand with his own. “That’s better.”

John laughed, but kept his hand still. “You’re so much softer than everyone thinks.”

“I am not.”

“What d’you call this then?” said John, wiggling his hand under Roger’s.

“Well, I know _you_ like this—I’m doing it for _you_ ,” said Roger. He smiled at the way John rolled his eyes, at the way he leaned closer into him.

“Speaking of all that you do for me,” said John with a half hearted, quickly fading laugh. “Thank you for sticking it out with the divorce.”

“Sticking it out?” Roger eased to a stop at a red light and turned to John.

“I know it’s not easy to have me living with you out of nowhere, going off to meet lawyers every other day, I’m all over the place all of the time, I know it’s not what you thought it would be when we came back from touring.”

“Yes it is,” Roger’s thumb stroked the back of John’s hand.

“It is?”

“This is exactly what I imagined,” said Roger with a grin. “Why d’you think I was so scared to go through with it. And this is only your half, I’ve still not told anyone, we’re still living in secret until that bomb goes off.”

“You expected it to be _this_ tense and horrible?”

“I expected worse.”

“And you still wanted me?” said John, a bit quieter.

“Past _and_ present tense,” corrected Roger. “Hard times will not get rid of me, I’m like herpes.”

John burst out in laughter, Roger couldn’t help join him. “You’re such a poet,” said John through the last few wheezes of his laughing.

“Don’t laugh when you say that,” said Roger with a laugh, poking John’s side.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” John caught his breath and flipped his hand over, threaded his fingers through Roger’s as they eased into a red light. “But it’s good to know this, this whole mess doesn’t have you on the brink of sending me to live with my sister.”

Roger tried hard not to laugh. He reached up to fiddle with John’s hair as he fought a smile. “Deaky, you’ve got such a way of building things up in your head you know that?”

“Oh and you don’t?” said John, leaning into the touch.

“Of course not,” said Roger. His hand lingered in his hair, scratching his scalp lightly, watching the way John’s eyes fluttered when he did. His hand settled at the back of his neck. He paused for a moment there. Just looking at him, his face still screwed up with residual worry from the night that was already over. “Oh, Deaky.” His foot pressed hard into the brake as he leant over and pulled him into kiss.

“Rog,” said John against his lips. Roger gave him no more room for words and felt him relax into the feeling as he did. At least until the car behind them honked and Roger noticed the light changed. “You’ll get us in trouble.”

“In trouble?” laughed Roger. “With who?”

“I don’t know,” said John a little more shy. Roger mapped in his head when the next light would be and hoped, and prayed, it’d be a red one. Ten minutes until they got home was too long of a wait for him right then. And then he saw an off street, down the road on his left. And when the light failed to turn red, he sped through it and screeched into to the turn off. “The fuck are you doing?” screeched John as he pressed into the door with the sharp turn.

Roger made no effort to respond. He slid against the curb, slammed his brakes on, and threw the car in park.

“Seriously, Rog—”

Roger cut him off with a desperate kiss, throwing himself towards him and tugging his shirt. John laughed against his lips, only for a moment before it gave way to sighs. His hands latched on Roger’s shirt, aimless and a little lost in a way Roger couldn’t help find endearing. After all this time, he still got so gun shy.

He grabbed John’s belt and tugged it apart, hurried to unbutton and unzip him.

“Right here?” muttered John as Roger stroked him.

“Right here,” replied Roger against his neck.

“What if someone sees?”

“No one’ll see,” Roger’s lips moved down to his collar, down his chest. He shifted his hips and leant over as far as he could to wrap his lips around John’s cock. Even this far down the road, he got hard in an instant. Since his first attempts, he’d gotten better at this. Gotten to where John didn’t let him try it for practice but instead begged for it. There was a certain sense of pride in mastering this, in getting John to buck and squirm with the slightest movement of his tongue.

John’s grip in his hair was unsteady, his grip on the door handle was tight, damn near enough to tear the leather under his fingernails. Roger forced himself down on John when he knew he was close, forced that extra little bit for John and relished in the way he sounded when he came, the way he sounded when Roger swallowed, the way he sounded when his mouth was replaced with a lazy hand teasing his oversensitive cock.

“Good?” said Roger, against John’s cheek. John nodded, panted, and kissed him while his hand massaged where he’d tugged Roger’s hair too hard. “Okay _now_ , we can go home.”

“It’s your turn when we get there,” John breathed. He fixed up his clothes while Roger pulled off the curb and rejoined the flow of traffic home.

~~~

“Did he say why?” grumbled Roger. The band meeting was meant, _meant_ , to be in a few hours, around noon, at a human time of day. John woke Roger at around half past seven and said it’d been rescheduled for eight. Roger wasn’t one for mornings, he was fairly sure none of them were and only really came to terms with being awake once he was in the car.

“Don’t know, Miami called it time-sensitive,” said John. “Must be the end of the fucking world, he’s never one to do this.”

“There’s no way in hell Freddie’ll wake up for this,” scoffed Roger.

“I called him to double check, he wasn’t even awake,” said John. “Brian either. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were just us two that made it.”

“What’s so fucking dire it can’t wait a few hours,” groaned Roger, sounding more and more like a teenager being woken up for school.

“If I knew that, I’d tell you,” said John, equally grumpy.

“What were his exact words?”

“I was half asleep,” John sighed, “something about the press, and that he needed us to come over.”

“Shit, you think some demo got leaked or something?” Roger turned the corner and John swayed with the motion of the car.

“If that’s why he called us in I’ll be furious, that doesn’t require an emergency call at the crack of fucking dawn.”

The radio played while Roger drove. He found most of his attention had drifted far away from driving the fucking car and was more focused on how badly he wanted to close his eyes again. He couldn’t imagine how Freddie and Brian must be doing. Both such severe night owls. Roger was one too, but with John around he was more structured. Freddie never wanted a regular sleep schedule and Brian, Roger was fairly sure, melted in sunlight. He could practically feel the sleepy, grumpy arguments they’d have soon as Miami told them whatever horrible news there was.

Roger stretched as he locked the car and hurried to catch up with John. The cold made the morning worse but the warmth of the office relaxed him, to a point. He was still pissed he had to be awake but there was a comfort in the smell the coffee machine brewing down the hall.

“Oh,” said Miami’s receptionist, her face entirely red, “right through there—he’s waiting on you.”

“Thank you,” said John. Roger could only smile, too tired for words. Though he did stare a bit at the way she averted her eyes. He couldn’t remember if she was a new hire, getting used to seeing musicians filter through her office, or if she was the same woman Roger saw for months, maybe even years, when they had to meet with Miami. He brought his sleeve up to wipe his mouth subconsciously, worried he might have some mark across his face making her turn away.

“There you two are,” Miami waved them in, “shut the door, shut the door.”

John shut the door and Roger flopped onto the couch against the far wall.

“Don’t fall asleep,” warned John.

“We’ve got time til Freddie and Brian get here,” said Roger, shifting around on the horrible, expensive leather couch, trying to find a comfortable spot and coming up short.

“Freddie and Brian?” said Miami. “They’re not coming until later, ’til when we were scheduled to meet.”

“Don’t worry,” said Roger, “John called them, they listen to John.”

“I—no I meant _I didn’t_ call them,” said Miami. He turned to John, “did you call them?”

“I assumed—they always need an extra call to get them up early,” said John, still awkwardly standing by the door.

“Well—the idea was to have a private meeting,” said Miami.

“You sound more like a disappointed mum every day,” teased Roger.

“Why’d you need a private meeting?” said John.

“We’ve run into a problem,” Miami reached over his desk, strode to the coffee table in front of Roger, and began laying out the stack of photos.

Roger watched carelessly as the first was placed on the lacquered wood of the coffee table. Looked like his car. Grainy but definitely his car. John in it with him. He sat up and glanced at the second photo. His outfit from the night before. The third photo featured him wrapped around John like his life depended on it. Still a bit grainy, still taken in the dark, but there was no mistaking the content. The next photo had him grinning at John tugging his shirt. By the fourth photo he’d mercifully ducked out of the field of view of the camera. The body of the car hiding anything graphic, though there was clearly no mistaking what was covered up.

“Doctored,” said Roger with a shaky laugh.

“If you say they’re doctored, so be it, but the man who took these has the negatives and the ability to sell more prints to whoever he chooses, so,” Miami sat back in his chair, “are they doctored?”

“Yes,” scoffed Roger.

“No,” admitted John overtop him.

“ _John!”_ spat Roger.

“ _Roger!”_ spat John right back.

“Do I need to try and pay this guy off or not,” said Miami. He never yelled but he always managed to get everyone’s attention.

“Yes, you do,” said John.

Miami looked to Roger, as if waiting for him to argue the point one more time. But Roger was silent. It was embarrassing to bring their relationship to light _like this_. With seedy, grainy photos from what was supposed to have been a private moment. It was embarrassing that Miami had these mailed to him, but it would’ve been far more embarrassing if his mum picked up a gossip column and saw the photos. So Roger shut up and broke away from Miami’s piercing gaze.

“Right then,” grumbled Miami.

“Who is this guy?” spat Roger. He knew he must be blushing, he could feel the heat in his cheeks, but hoped it may come off as anger or indignation rather than embarrassment. “What the fuck’s he doing taking pictures of something like that—fucking pervert, that’s fucked up.”

“It is,” said Miami. He meandered to his desk, started flipping through his rolodex.

“I’m sorry about this,” muttered John as he fell back into one of the cushioned chairs.

“I’ve cleaned up bigger messes than this,” scoffed Miami. “Compared to Freddie, this is nothing. But, something as salacious as this might be hard to buy out.”

“Thanks for trying at least,” said Roger, a hand on his bright red face. Roger looked to John, John looked back. A similar expression of ‘this is fucking humiliating’ read clear on each other’s faces.

“Do we personally pay the guy off or does the label?” said John. He always brought nitty gritty details and numbers into conversations he was too stressed to navigate. It gave him something more tangible to think of.

“Personally,” said Miami. “Unfortunately there is no insurance policy for road head.”

“God,” Roger rubbed his forehead, staving off a headache.

“There is a chance, however, they’ll print anyway,” said Miami.

“Can’t—can’t we sue them or—or,” stammered John, “I mean isn’t this blackmail? Or extortion?”

“Yes, Deaks, that’s exactly what we should do, get into a lengthy, expensive legal battle with some fucking paparazzo, get a bunch of attention drummed up around the photos we don’t want released, and then whoever took ‘em’ll just anonymously mail them into The Sun anyway,” said Roger.

“It’s worth a shot—” began John.

“I’m afraid Roger’s right about this,” said Miami, taking a seat behind his desk. “This is the easiest way around this.”

“Tell him we’ll pay whatever he fucking wants,” said Roger, leant forward on his knees, aimlessly thumbing through the grainy photos. His stomach turned at the idea of anyone he knew seeing these.

“Whatever he wants?” John turned to him. “You can pay whatever he wants. I’m in the middle of a divorce, I’ve got a son, I can’t fork over all my savings—”

“That’s not what I was fucking saying,” groaned Roger. “My family can’t find out like this, if you want to save your money that’s fuckin’ fine by me but _I’m_ not letting these print.”

“This is all hypothetical,” said Miami.

“How’d you mean?” said John, his voice tense and tight.

“Selling these to multiple gossip columns maybe be worth more than you can top,” Miami leant forward. “And, of course, he may use the price you offer as leverage to get more from the magazines and papers. It’s not an exact science.”

“How’d’you get all of Freddie’s messes cleaned up then?” spat Roger.

“He stays away from cameras,” said Miami, quiet and calm. “The only photos I’ve been able to get the rights to were personal photos, taken by acquaintances. This is different.”

“The hell kind of PR manager are you if you can’t keep a lid on this?” said Roger.

“I’m not technically your PR manager anymore,” said Miami, equally tense but never raising his voice, “and like I said, I will do my best.”

“Good morning, darling!” said Freddie as he threw the door open. “You’re a real bitch making us wake up on such short notice but you’ll see I am only,” he checked his watch, “well just a _bit_ late. So—what’ve I missed?”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” muttered Roger.

“Hungover are we?” laughed Freddie.

Roger’s palms got sweaty, his heart pounded, his eyes stayed locked on the photos. The photos that would be released, would drain his bank account or get spread all across London, all across England. _At least_. God knew where else they’d end up, god knew how many other people would get a glimpse into such a private moment between them.

“Freddie, I waved to you outside and you didn’t wave back,” said Brian as he pushed his way inside.

“You did? I didn’t see you, would’ve bothered you otherwise.”

“God, Roger, you look pale,” said Brian.

“He’s hungover,” replied Freddie.

“Please shut up,” said John. Roger could feel his knee bouncing, shaking the table as he did. Roger was anxious about it, sure. His whole family could find out this enormous secret he’d kept from them in such a lewd, impersonal way. But John had a son, had a long suffering wife, had a certain shyness about him that made him abhor fame and recognition. If they printed, Roger could see him refusing to leave the house for a few weeks, for a few months even. And Roger might be right there with him. Too embarrassed to show his face.

“I’m gonna be sick,” repeated Roger.

“Then go be sick,” said Freddie tiredly.

“What’re those photos?” said Brian.

Roger took a deep breath in, tried to calm himself, and failed. He lurched out of his seat and ran for the door. He only vaguely remembered the floorplan of Miami’s office. They only had to meet there before and after tours and albums. Most of the time he preferred to meet at the studio and avoid the hassle of getting Freddie to meet on time. So he barreled into the woman’s restroom and just barely had time to kneel on the tiled floor before the gagging, the heaving caught up to him.

It wasn’t just his mother, his sister, though those worried him the most. It was everyone he knew. Every old classmate, every old friend, every new friend, every coworker, every acquaintance from other bands, every producer, engineer, editor, mixer, every interviewer, every fan. Everyone would know, everyone would’ve seen the photos, heard of them at least. They’d know. They’d have seen him at his most vulnerable, they’d have seen John too.

“Roger, you’re scaring all the interns,” echoed Freddie’s voice.

“Fuck off,” croaked Roger.

“It’s not this bad.” Roger heard the sink run for a moment, then felt Freddie behind him. “Here.” He handed him off a damp paper towel.

Roger wiped his forehead, wiped his mouth, and sat back against the stall wall once he was fairly confident he was done vomiting nothing but bile. “No one knows—and if that prints—”

“No one takes those tabloid stories seriously,” said Freddie. The toe of his boot prodded Roger’s thigh. “I say this with all the love in the world—you’re being a little dramatic.”

“No one’s leaked photos of you sucking cock,” spat Roger.

Freddie pressed against the opposite side of the stall and slid down the wall to sit, to get on Roger’s level. “No they haven’t. But your life won’t change for this.”

“What about my mum and Clare?”

“Tell them,” shrugged Freddie, “or don’t. It’s only a big deal if you make it one.”

“Feels like a pretty big fucking deal,” Roger rested his head against the stall wall.

“I bet,” said Freddie, doing the same. “But it isn’t. The less you worry over it the quicker it passes.”

“This is so easy for you to say—”

“I’ve had headlines all about me and whatever man I’m with. My parents see them, I don’t discuss them, it’s that simple. I don’t want to talk about it, so I don’t. Your mum and Clare aren’t going to see this headline and force a big explanation from you.”

“Maybe,” sighed Roger, calming down despite himself.

“Remember that time your mum took out an ad for us playing, in, fuck I don’t remember where it was,” began Freddie, Roger was already grinning, knowing exactly what he was talking about. “And she put ‘Roger Taylor’ in huge letters and ‘and Queen’ underneath?”

“I remember.” Roger coughed through a laugh. “Mostly because of how pissed Brian was.”

“We _did_ look like your opening act,” said Freddie with a grin. “But d’you really think a mother who would do that, would also condemn you based on a tabloid?”

“Not _actually_ ,” said Roger, quick and certain. “But, the idea of it all is…”

“The idea’s always worse isn’t it?” Freddie knocked their knees together. “You may well be worried over nothing, you may be able to pay him off and wash your hands of it. No sense getting sick until we’re certain you’ve got something to get sick about eh?”

“Suppose not.”

Freddie heaved him off the floor and waited while he rinsed his mouth out, and apologised to the few women who awkwardly backed out and back in, wondering if they’d got the wrong restroom.

The photos were away when they got back to the office, the topic seemed to be put away as well. Miami would make a call or two later on and see what they could do but until then, business as usual for everyone else. Roger found a spot next to John and tried hopelessly to focus on the matters at hand, the new albums, the scheduling for tours, all that tedious shit, while his his stomach turned over and over, and his eyes glanced back to Miami’s locked up desk more times than he could count.

~~~

“What time is it?” asked Roger for the fourth time that hour.

“Still half past one,” said John.

“What time did he say?”

“One,” said John for the fourth time that hour.

Miami said it may span a few days, and it did. A few days of them offering more money and less legal action, hemming and hawing back and forth far too slow for Roger’s liking. The amount on the table was bordering on too much even for Roger’s panicked state. It made him entirely dependent on their next album doing well. But if whoever it was just took the fucking money he’d deal with the tightened belts and purse strings.

He and John sat in Roger’s living room, well, their living room, staring at the phone, unable to tear their eyes from it. Both anxiously fidgeting. Roger fiddling with the upholstery of the chair, John biting his nails and tapping his foot impatiently.

“Fuck it,” said Roger. He reached for the phone and frantically dialed. John didn’t bother trying to stop him. If Roger had waited a few more seconds he knew John would’ve tried to do the same anyway.

Roger held his breath through each ring, each one felt longer than the last, each one had his jaw clenching tighter and his hand wrapping another loop around the cord.

“Jim Beach,” said Miami.

“Hey, it’s Roger, I—you said you’d call by one and—” began Roger.

“I was about to call, I was just off exhausting every last option,” said Miami with a humourless laugh.

“What does that mean? Every last option of what?” said Roger, wide panicked eyes looking to John.

“Fuck,” whispered John.

“It means, unless you’re willing to sell your fucking house, these photos’ll print the day after tomorrow.”

“What?” said Roger. Miami might’ve responded, he wouldn’t have heard. His hearing whited out, his throat went dry, his heart either stopped or beat so fast he couldn’t feel it anymore. “You’re sure?—John, they’re asking for way more money I...”

“If you want to pay it,” began Miami, tentatively, “I won’t stop you but…” his voice trailed off.

“Should we?” whispered Roger in John’s direction. John stared blankly. Roger could see the gears turning, could see him trying to come up with some brand new solution, the same as Roger, and ultimately coming up empty when he looked back at Roger. John held his breath for a moment, then shook his head on the exhale. He looked so nervous but so apathetic, so indifferent but so scared. Roger couldn’t help feel the same way. “I think we let them print it.”

“I’m sorry about this,” said Miami, he sounded genuine but Roger didn’t care if he was or not. A sincere apology wouldn’t make him feel any better.

“Well,” Roger paused, gripped the receiver a little tighter, “thanks anyway, I guess.”

Roger hung up, John stared straight ahead in silence, both a lost in their own thoughts, their own anxious doomsday scenarios that had been lingering in the back of their minds for a few days now, finally being brought to the forefront. Freddie’s reminder to stay calm, that it was only as bad as he’d make it out to be, rang in his ears over and over again. But so did the idea of his unassuming family finding the paper, or worse, someone forcing it on them. He envied John at times like these. So private. He wasn’t sure the public knew he had a sister, much less how to harass her.

“I have to tell Ronnie,” said John after an eternity of silence.

“Right now?” said Roger, his own voice sounding strange to him.

“I’ve got the meeting with her and the lawyers in forty five minutes, might as well get that out of the way.” John stood and searched lazily for his jacket.

Roger thought about asking him to stay, to wallow in the defeat that threatened to overtake Roger entirely. But what good would it do? John had to go, had to show for the meeting, and there was nothing he could say or do to bring Roger any comfort. So he kissed John goodbye, loaded his pockets with his keys and wallet, and lingered at the door with him.

“I think we might laugh at ourselves for overreacting to this one day,” said John.

“I really hope so,” said Roger with a weak smile. John pressed one last lingering kiss to Roger’s lips, as if somehow they may never speak again. Roger knew it was silly to feel so heavy in the moment, to let this time have such a sense of finality to it. But it did. His heart was in his throat, his chest was tight, his legs were unsteady, and there was nothing left to be done. He watched John leave and only closed the door once he was out of sight.

He fidgeted with the few things around their living room he could toss from hand to hand, or play with the mechanics of. Unsure of what to do while he waited for his private photos to be printed in the paper. He felt like he ought to call Miami back and offer to sell his house or something equally drastic. He sat back in front of the phone, stared at it for a minute or two, then dialed.

“Hallo!” said Freddie on the other end.

“Hey Fred,” said Roger. Freddie always brought a smile to his face in an instant.

“Hello darling,” said Freddie with a little more love. “Heard any news yet?”

“Bad news,” said Roger with an insincere laugh. “Couldn’t really afford to keep it quiet so…so it’ll print.”

“I can lend you—” began Freddie.

“Not worth it,” said Roger. “It’ll come out anyway, might as well just let it go.”

“Remember when that photo of me at the leather bar came out?” said Freddie. Roger did remember that mostly because the night after it printed Freddie showed up at his house and demanded Roger keep his attention until he fell asleep, so desperate not to think about it. “Thought it was the end of the fucking world. And does the world look over?”

“I suppose not.” The world, his career hadn’t sunk under the weight of that one photo getting printed nationwide, but his image took a hit. Their sales took a slight hit. Their interviews turned into barrages of intrusive sexual interrogations. And though he kept his public responses to all of that very calm and level headed, in private Roger saw the way his anxieties ate him up, the way he hid himself a little better. The way he guarded himself with stronger walls. It might not be the end of the world, but it wouldn’t be _nothing._

“It’ll blow over. The fans, the public will forget, some may not even see it. You are the drummer after all,” teased Freddie.

“Hopefully,” said Roger. “Y’know John’s not as worried. He’s upset but, he’s not so panicked.” Freddie stayed silent for a beat. “Maybe if it weren’t such a secret with me I wouldn’t be considering selling off my house to keep it quiet.”

“Nothing wrong with keeping it to yourself,” said Freddie.

“There’s nothing wrong with not wanting the public to see photos of me like that, nothing wrong with never making a statement about it all to the press but…I don’t know…Maybe Brian’s right,” said Roger.

“Has hell frozen over?”

“No,” laughed Roger. “He’s right, I _did_ say I didn’t want this to be such a government secret and I _am_ fine with our crew knowing…why shouldn’t I be fine with my family knowing.”

“There’s plenty of reason—”

“Plenty of reason for you and for other people, but I’m not you, I’m not one to keep secrets like this,” said Roger, his words tumbling over each other. “At least, I don’t _want_ to be.”

Roger listened to the way Freddie breathed in the silence that followed his words. He held his breath waiting for Freddie’s opinion, his advice, his blasé attitude that always comforted him when he got in over his head. “Then I guess you ought to tell them before it prints.”

Roger smirked at the unsurprising answer. “I guess I should.”

~~~

John rested deep into the mattress, his hips up high while Roger rutted into him just how he liked, and his face buried in the mess of their pillows and blankets. Roger’s hands were tight on his hips as he snapped them back to meet his own. John liked it like this every once in awhile. Mostly he was sappy enough to want to be able to look at Roger, but once Roger showed him how good it might feel from behind he’d never lost the taste for it. He whined some muddled version of Roger’s name into the pillow he was clawing at and biting every so often. Roger reached under his hips, held his aching cock and stroked him. Only for a moment before John’s body convulsed as he came all across the towel Roger’d laid out under him.

Roger fucked him through it until he came as well. It didn’t take long, never did with John. He leaned over him, kissed across his back, the few notches of his spine that were visible. “Good?”

“Uh-huh,” panted John, eyes still shut, mouth still slack and open.

Roger smirked and ran a comforting hand across his back, up to his shoulders and back down to his hips. He took the towel from under John and wiped off the mess he’d made. Once he’d thrown the towel haphazardly in the general direction of their bathroom, John fell to the side.

“You look so dazed,” said Roger as he nestled in next to him.

“Mm,” hummed John. Roger pulled the duvet up across them both and let John tangle their legs. “I love you.” His voice was sleepy and low.

“I love you too.”

“Fuck,” sighed John. He shimmied his way closer, rested his head on Roger’s shoulder, draped an arm across his waist and held on tight. “You know, you’re worth all this.”

“Hm?” Roger ran a hand through John’s hair and couldn’t help grin when he remembered how long it used to be, how young they both used to be, how stupid they used to be.

“All this shit, this divorce, this splitting it all up, figuring out with Robert and all that, this whole _mess_ with the press, with our families,” said John, his words getting sloppier the closer to sleep he got, “but it’s worth it for you.”

“You can tell me if it’s not,” whispered Roger.

“It is, I’d,” John took in a deep breath, “I’d divorce every woman in England for you. I’d have a photo of one of my piss poor blowjobs projected onto Buckingham Palace for you.”

“How romantic,” said Roger with a laugh. John was too tired to respond. That’s how he’d been most nights after coming home from tedious meetings with the damn lawyer. Roger often offered to come with but John always declined. When he was drunk once he admitted he felt it was his punishment for what he’d done to Veronica, that he needed to suffer through it in order to deserve being happy. There’d be no convincing him that wasn’t true, so Roger did the next best thing and spoiled him whenever he’d had a meeting. A dinner of his favourites and whatever he wanted in bed. Tonight it was spoiling himself just as much as John. Afterwards he was always too worn out from the day to sit up and talk about nothing the way they used to, but that’d pass.

Roger didn’t mind it too bad. He missed the company and companionship of how they’d fuck like teenagers and sit up for another hour talking about nothing, passing back and forth one of Roger’s science fiction magazines, reading each other a few pages of the book they’d been trying to get through together ever since they heard one of John’s cousins did the same with her husband. That chatter always got convoluted as they got tired and fought to stay awake, to enjoy a little more time with each other. Roger missed that. But he liked watching John sleep. Liked how calm his face was despite having spent the whole day twisted up in worry and depression. Liked how warm his breath was, the way his fingers twitched against Roger’s skin in his sleep. Roger wasn’t one to be mushy, to be poetic even. But there were times his chest would tighten, his eyes would well, just a bit, thinking of John, of how much he loved him.

He was worth it. Worth all the shit he’d have to go through. Worth it a thousand times over.

Roger waited another minute or two before he slipped out from under John. An arduous process but John was so worn out there wasn’t much that could wake him. He tugged on some shorts and meandered down the hall to the little study. He shut the door, sat at his desk, put the desk phone in his lap, took a few deep breaths, and dialed Clare’s number before he lost his nerve.

“Hello?” said Clare on the other end, sounding like she’d just woken up.

“Hallo, Clare?” said Roger, he twisted the phone cord around his fingers tightly.

“Rog?” Clare took a deep breath in and shuffled around on the other end. “What time is it?”

“Half past two,” said Roger.

“Are you okay? Are you in England?”

“I’m in England,” said Roger with a laugh.

“Are you on something?” said Claire.

“What?” laughed Roger. “What would I be on?”

“You know I saw an article about you snorting _something_ with some other rock band from America,” said Clare.

“Tabloids, Clare, tabloids. Making money off ruining my image,” laughed Roger.

“Go easy with it,” said Clare, sounding less like a sister and more like a mother. Roger could tell she was genuine with her worry when she did that. “Alright, my bedside lamp’s on, I’m awake. What’s going on?”

“I’m alright,” said Roger, hoping to calm any nerves she must’ve had after being woken up so suddenly. “But, listen I—thought I might run something by you.” Roger picked up the hook and started pacing. Something he often did on the phone out of boredom, but now it was nerves and a pounding heart. He was grateful to be alone.

“Oo!” said Clare, sounding more awake. “Have you been up all night writing? Am I going to hear the beginnings of a new song?“

“No that’s not it,” said Roger with a grin. Clare didn’t care for music past what was on the radio, what she could dance to. It frustrated him in their younger years that she could play piano, play guitar, dance so much better than him in their ballet and tap classes, and never care for it beyond making sure she didn’t disappoint their mother or the tutor. And so it always felt a bit weightier and more satisfying when she did take an interest. He was almost tempted to fake a demo for her.

“How hollywood would that be?” Clare giggled. “You’re toiling away all night, quill pen and ink pot, writing out sheet after sheet of music, calling your dear sister to see how it sounds and then it’s an historical hit.”

“Oh I see, you only care for the music if you’re part of the backstory for some great earworm is that it?” teased Roger.

“Of course,” said Clare, audibly trying not to laugh. “And if you don’t call me next time you’ve got some musical breakthrough, I’ll tell the press you used to wear my clothes,” said Clare with a giggle.

“ _I’ll_ tell the press that,” laughed Roger.

Clare laughed through an overdramatic groan. “Alright, what’s this thing you’ve go to run by me?”

“Well,” Roger felt his palms clam up, “well I met someone.”

“Have you?” said Clare. “On tour? You’re sure she’s not a lunatic?”

“You think I would give a fan that kind of time of day?” laughed Roger. “I’m not insane.”

“I never know with you,” said Clare, Roger could practically hear the grin on her face. “So who’s the lucky lady?”

“It’s er, well it’s sort of funny,” Roger took to rearranging the knick knacks on his hifi, “it’s actually maybe not all that funny but it’s er, it’s the, the bassist.”

“For what band?” laughed Clare. “There are a lot of bassists.”

“For mine,” said Roger.

“Oh,” Clare was silent for a moment before adding, “ _oh_ , as in, as in John, right?”

“As in John,” Roger shut his eyes tight, clenched his jaw and held his breath.

“Isn’t, am I remembering wrong, isn’t he married?” said Clare.

“You’re remembering right,” Roger rubbed his face and noticed the way his hands shook when he did. “I—I know this must be sort of a surprise to you, it was to me too, but it’s—it’s been years and I—I—I,” Roger took a deep breath to stop his stammering, paused his words and tried to think them out a bit clearer.

“You sound so sad,” said Clare with an awkward laugh. “Nothing’s the matter, Rog, it’s alright.”

“Is it?” said Roger in a quiet voice.

“It is,” Clare reassured. “Has he told his wife yet?”

“Uh,” he rubbed his eye until he saw stars, “he did, the night we got back to England. They’re working on the divorce and the custody and all of that right now—he’s got, he’s got a son, I don’t know if you…if you knew that.”

“Blimey,” muttered Clare. She paused for a breath or two, thinking it out before adding, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He wondered why he’d said that as soon as it left his mouth. If he was so ‘fine’ he wouldn’t be calling his sister at nearly three o’clock in the morning and trying not to vomit as he paced his study. “I’ve been better but I’m okay.”

“Poor dear,” said Clare. “You could’ve said sooner, Rog.” There was no disguising the hurt in her voice. The two of them were close and Roger knew it would sting just a bit to know he’d kept this from her. That he was afraid to tell her, afraid of her reaction. But he hoped she’d see that it wasn’t her own doing, that it was Roger’s anxieties and panic building it all up much bigger than it was.

“It’s not like I didn’t want to it’s just,” Roger flopped back in his chair, “not an easy thing to say.”

“That’s alright,” said Clare. “You serious about him?”

“Of course,” Roger ran his thumb nervously across a paper weight he found on his desk. Something Freddie bought him ages ago when they were still fairly low on funds. Glass, and delicate, but cheap. It fit perfectly in Roger’s palm. “I wouldn’t turn my whole life upside down for just anyone.”

“Upside down? It’s hardly upside down.”

“Not yet it isn’t,” said Roger with a tired sigh. “There’s another reason I’m calling.”

“I can take it,” laughed Clare.

“It’s going to come out in the papers, day after tomorrow,” said Roger. “Some…some fucking—some arsehole photographer got shots of us and they’ll be printing soon. I just—I didn’t want you to see that without hearing it from me first.”

“Have they really?” said Clare. “Can’t you sue or—or—buy the rights or something?”

“Believe me, we tried,” Roger leaned back in his chair. “It’s fucking humiliating but, honestly, I think it would’ve leaked either way and I” he squeezed the rubbery phone cord wrapped around his fingers, “couldn’t have you find out through something so…”

“Something so what? Intrusive? Invasive? Inhumane?” said Clare, reaching the levels of indignation Roger felt when he first found out. “God—You make music it’s your fucking job, like anyone else has a fucking job, why is it always you and Freddie and all them, why is it you lot can’t have one fucking ounce of privacy?”

“Preaching to the choir, Clare,” laughed Roger. “According to Freddie it’ll…it’ll blow over, I won’t have to make any sort of _announcement_.”

“The outside world can mind their own business, no sense telling them,” said Clare, using words Roger was sure he’d said himself before.

“Right,” Roger grinned, “but I figured…you and mum would want answers.”

“You thinking of telling mum?”

Roger shrugged as if she might see that, then added, “sort of have to don’t I?”

“I suppose,” said Claire, her voice trailing, trying to come up with an alternative.

“How d’you think she’d take it?”

“She’ll live,” said Clare with a laugh.

“Don’t laugh,” whined Roger.

“D’you want me to tell her?”

“Maybe,” said Roger in a low voice. “If you could.”

“She won’t mind it,” said Clare, Roger could practically hear her settling back into her bed. “Is this why you won’t let me come by and see that big art piece you got in California? Is he living with you now or something?”

“He is,” Roger’s grip on the phone cord got a bit tighter.

“Sounds serious,” said Clare, a bit of teasing in her voice.

“It is,” said Roger with a grin on his face. “The most serious I’ve ever been.”

“Most serious you’ve ever been?” Clare laughed. “You’ve been with him for three months.”

Roger spun his chair, back and forth and back and forth. “It was a long time coming.”

“So when am I invited to meet him?”

“You’ve met him.”

“I’ve met him as my brother’s coworker who doesn’t speak all that much,” said Clare. “I’d like something a little more substantial.”

“I think he’d like that.” He paused and added, “I know I would.”

“Call me tomorrow,” the sleepiness was catching up with her, “we’ll plan it all then when I can keep my eyes open.”

“I will,” Roger clenched his jaw and hesitated to say more but let it out anyway, “sorry for this, Clare. I know it’s hard to be my brother on a good day and this is…”

“Oh Rog,” sighed Clare. “What’s the saying? You’re not heavy, you’re my brother?”

“That’s the one,” said Roger in a meek voice.

“I love you,” said Clare, quiet but clear. “Call me tomorrow, and get some sleep, you sound exhausted.”

“Love you too,” though he meant it, it always felt like an especially vulnerable thing to say to Clare. He gave her a quick goodnight and was slow to put the phone back on the hook. It didn’t feel like much of a revelation and confession, not in comparison to John’s divorce or his mum and dad uninviting him to any and all family events in the near future. But it didn’t need to be a grand event for him to feel the weight lift off his shoulders.

He crept back to bed, settled in as carefully as he could next to John. But he still stirred and still rolled onto Roger like he belonged there, and he did.

“Where’d you go?” mumbled John against his chest.

“I called Clare,” whispered Roger, “told her the whole lot.”

John stayed perfectly still for a moment, then did his best to shift, to prop himself up and look at Roger with sleepy eyes. “Really? Just now?”

“Just now.”

“What’d she say?”

“All good things,” said Roger, a giddy smile crept onto his face. “All good.”

John smiled, soft and sweet as ever, and in lieu of a congratulations, leant down to kiss Roger with what little energy he had left. Roger reciprocated the few quiet mutterings of ‘I love you’ John left against his lips, against his cheek, as he fell back asleep, carefully and tightly wrapped around Roger, Roger wrapped just as tight around him.

~~~

The morning it was printed, Roger felt a distinct lack of anxiety. Clare promised to tell his mother the day before and, though he hadn’t heard from her, at least she wouldn’t be blindsided, at least he’d covered his bases. On a morning he expected to be nervously camped outside a newsstand, he slept in with John. Woke up with him slowly, rolled on top of him slowly, fucked him slow and lazy, and watched him intently, lovingly as he cooked up eggs for them both.

“What is it?” said John at the stove.

“Nothing,” said Roger, smiling with his chin in his hand at the table.

The phone rang, Roger lamented having to tear his eyes from the sight of John to answer it.

“Hello, Roger?”

“Oh—hi mum,” said Roger as loud as he could to get John’s attention. John, unsure of how to help or what to do, turned the stove off and stared at him like he’d seen a ghost. “How’ve you been?”

“Good, thank you—I had a talk with Clare—” began his mother.

“Yes—I asked her to have that talk I—I’m sorry I couldn’t say it myself but—”

“I understand,” laughed his mother, light and airy. “Embarrassing little mixup isn’t it.”

“Er,” Roger’s breath caught in his throat, “yes I suppose it is.”

“Well I was calling to tell you that it did get delivered to my neighbourhood but its that—that, oh what’s the name of it—it’s that gossip paper, no one takes it seriously.”

“Right,” said Roger with a furrowed brow that John was gesturing wildly at, begging him to explain what was happening. Roger ignored him, too confused to elaborate. “But mum, those are real photos you know.”

“I know.”

“Oh,” said Roger. He couldn’t help wonder if he was supposed to say more and left a gaping silence while he tried to think of something.

“Did I lose you? Are you there?”

“I’m here I’m just…surprised I guess,” laughed Roger. John continued gesturing wildly for some indication of how it was going. Roger gave him a half hearted thumbs up. “I expected it to be more of an issue I guess.”

“Well it’s not exactly out of nowhere is it?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Not to me. Was it to you?”

“Hell yes!” laughed Roger, muttering a quiet apology for swearing after he heard his mother click her tongue.

“You’ve got to get up earlier than that to surprise me,” she said with a loud, slightly wheezy laugh.

“Wish you would’ve mentioned it to me,” said Roger, a smile wide across his face, his free hand awkwardly rearranging the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

“Really thought you knew love,” she paused. “So—when you lived with Freddie that was just…a flatmate?”

“ _Yes!”_ Roger groaned and heard his mother apologise quick.

“I don’t know,” she laughed, “you sold those clothes together and brought him home so often, I don’t know!”

Roger laughed with her, cringing at every memory of Freddie staying over at the house. All the times she’d loudly announced herself before walking into his bedroom, and all the times she’d gone through Roger’s childhood photo albums with Freddie.

“So Clare says we’re all going for dinner, when’ll that be?”

“Whenever you’re both free I suppose, you know us musicians, we don’t have real jobs,” said Roger with a grin that widened when his mum laughed.

“Tell him hello from me.”

“Will do, mum. Love you,” he added.

“Love you too, dear,” she’d said that to him a thousand times over every morning noon and night. But it felt more comforting than it ever had in that moment. Roger’s hand shook as he put the phone back on the hook and turned to John.

“Well?!” John scooted the slightly overcooked eggs onto two plates.

“All good things,” said Roger.

“Thank god.” John fell into his chair with a sigh.

“Don’t panic either but, Clare and mum want to have dinner, us four, this weekend I’ll bet.” Roger watched the way John tried very hard to look unfazed and unbothered by the idea. Watched the way his jaw clenched and his hand gripped his coffee mug like he might shatter it, how that contrasted with the slight ‘sounds good’ that he managed to squeak out. “I said don’t panic.”

“I’m not,” said John, too loud and too fast. Roger could help laugh at him, couldn’t help laugh harder when John told him to stop. He apologised with some insincere words commenting on how calm and put-together John was, a few lazy kisses given from across the table, and his finger’s threaded through John’s. He could say it all day, and he often tried, but ‘I love you’ just never felt strong enough.


End file.
